


the napoleon

by darcylindbergh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Costumes, First Kiss, First Time, Halloween, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:25:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: Halloween, 1989: John and Sherlock both have big plans for the night, but serial killers have the worst possible timing.





	1. the last room on the left

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Наполеон (the napoleon)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9210977) by [Merla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merla/pseuds/Merla)



> Thanks to hudders-and-hiddles and toxicsemicolon for the encouragement and the beta! 
> 
> This is a Halloween fic with a few nods to the slasher/horror film genre that had its golden age in the late 1970s and 80s. Although I believe I limited descriptions of violence and gore to those that would be typical of BBC Sherlock canon, if you have any sensitivity to those issues, please take this into consideration before reading. 
> 
> Happy Halloween!

Townhouse at the end of the row, white. Black front door. Bare windows all illuminated in careless invitation to look closer, to peer inside. On the front stoop, a pumpkin grins a macabre smile, full of teeth carved into points.

Shift from foot to foot in the cold and try to focus. The side-garden provides the perfect cover on a night like tonight, when everyone else is eager to avoid what might wait in the shadows, and the view into the needlessly extravagant sitting room and the foyer beyond is ideal.

The target disappeared upstairs with her guest some twenty-five minutes ago; won’t be much longer now.

There—the guest descends the last few steps of the staircase, just visible through the doorway of the sitting room, re-buttoning his shirt as he moves out of sight toward the front door. Another brief pause, then the tell-tale sounds of the door opening and closing, footsteps on the pavement, hailing a cab. Wait until he’s gone; wait another few minutes to be sure he isn’t coming back.

Collateral isn’t typically a problem, but tonight the instructions were very clear: a message can only be sent if the messenger delivers it pristinely. 

Once the guest is gone, the task is simple. The back door to the alley was left unlocked by tonight’s kitchen staff and it takes just a minute or two to slip inside, to rifle through a few drawers and find a set of knives—several hundred pounds’ worth, fine but absurd—and to pick a sharp utility knife with a steel blade and a contoured grip for easy handling. How convenient.

Past to the dining room, into the sitting room. The telly has been left on but the channel is blank, playing static into the quiet, muffling the sound of steps on the carpet. Up the stairs, down the darkened hallway. The soft, rosy light of a lamp spills out of the last room on the left like a beacon.

Inside, the target sits at the vanity, back to the door, too self-absorbed to notice the door creaking open just a little bit wider. Step quick but quiet; closer, careful to stay out of the reflection of the mirror. Tighten the grip on the handle of the knife.

When the target finally realises and turns with wide eyes, mouth opening in a scream, it's already too late. The rush of the knife through tender flesh robs the sound from the night: the rest is silence.

*

John Watson snaps the last buckle into place around his lower thigh and straightens, adjusting the weight of the utility belt around his hips. The leather gun holster attached to it runs long and too low against his leg, making him feel a bit off-kilter, but he has to admit that it looks damn good.

He adjusts the belt one more time and takes a deep breath. It’s going to be one hell of a night.

One hell of a Halloween party.

Stamford has been throwing the annual bash since their uni days, but it’s been years since John’s actually been able to go—not since before he was first deployed to the Falklands. There was always something special about it, though. There always is, with Halloween: that certain Gothic sensuality that blooms in the anonymity of dark rooms and fancy dress. The suggestion of something supernatural, of something mysterious and irresistible in the night outside, a lick of danger, the taste of fantasy.  

It’s the perfect set-up for something new and exciting to happen, and something new and exciting usually does. This year should be no different.

Except that this year everything is already different, because this year, there’s Sherlock Holmes.

Because Sherlock is, himself, something new. Something exciting.

They’ve been sharing a flat since January but the shock of meeting Sherlock still hasn’t quite worn off. John had been at a loose end, more interested in the muzzle of his gun than anything else, when Sherlock had barreled into his life, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him back onto the battlegrounds of city streets.

It was a daring way to live. Exhilarating. Addictive. Cases and mysteries and stake-outs at three in the morning, Chinese food spread over the coffee table and never what John expected to find in the fridge. The comfort of a violin sonata by firelight and the weight of a forgotten book in John’s lap. The thrill of chasing bad guys down back alleys and over rooftops, laughing, their breath curling together, rising up like smoke into the London sky.

Then three, maybe four months ago, John had looked over and suddenly realised that Sherlock had become something neither of them ever intended him to be: loved.

Terribly, desperately loved.

Which was a problem for John, because Sherlock was also terribly, desperately uninterested.  _Married to my work_ , he’d said, that very first night. John had gotten the message, loud and clear: no. Not now, not ever, not with John or (thank God, at least) anybody else.

For the most part, it was fine. John didn’t look or touch or linger. He went on dates because that’s what people did; he focused his attention elsewhere, where it was wanted, and when it wasn’t wanted anymore, he simply went back home where Sherlock would hand him a newspaper and tell him what to look for, like he’d never been gone. Not perfect, maybe, but it worked. Flatmates and friends. It was enough, John thought, to be friends.

So when Stamford had caught up with John in Regent’s Park three weeks ago and told him about this year’s Halloween party, it had seemed like a pretty good idea to invite Sherlock along. As friends.

It was not a good idea. It was an  _awful_ idea. It was possibly the worst idea John had ever had, because now John is facing an evening out with his brilliant, gorgeous, practically-otherworldly-even-on-a-usual-day flatmate, with whom he is dangerously in love, at a party founded on myth and legend and the secret sort of things that are knowable only on this one night, celebrated in a revelry of drinking and dancing and flirting and fancy dress.

Truly, a bad idea.

John needs a distraction tonight, if he hopes to get through this. Something to focus on before he makes a complete arse of himself. Anything,  _anyone_ , to take up his field of vision and remind him of the status quo: Sherlock is his flatmate and friend and will only ever be that, and he needs to look elsewhere for the rest.  

At least this outfit looks good on him, John thinks, checking his costume over one last time. He may not be the best-looking bloke in the bunch, but the hip holster and the boots and the devil-may-care smile will all go a long way toward attracting someone’s attention, even if it isn’t Sherlock’s.

The thought strengthens his original resolve and he takes a deep breath, pausing at his bedroom door, steeling himself. He just needs to have a couple of drinks, find a pretty someone to move with on the dance floor, and forget about being in love with Sherlock Holmes for one night.

Good. Good plan. He could do that. Probably.

He turns the knob and heads downstairs.

*

There’s footsteps on the stairs and Sherlock turns, swallowing down his nerves and straightening his spine in resolution. It’s going to be a perfect night out with John, a perfect opportunity. He can do this.

John slides into the doorway of the sitting room, one hand bracing himself up against the frame. “Hey, you ready?”

Sherlock doesn’t hear him over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. John, usually bound up in collared shirts and jumpers, is exposed virtually halfway down his chest in some soft, creamy cotton shirt with a deep vee cut into the neckline. A heavy belt sits too low on his hips, with a gun holster hanging from it that runs the length of his thigh, held close to a pair of tight denims with an extra strap just above his knee.

He looks compact and powerful and a little bit reckless and suddenly the ruffled cravat around Sherlock’s own neck is making it difficult to breathe.

John gives him a slow, easy grin, like he can tell he caught Sherlock off-guard, and looks down Sherlock’s body and up again.  _It’s just the outfit,_ he reminds himself, but it doesn’t stop the blush from rising in his cheeks.

“You look—good,” John says. “That’s awesome.”

“You too,” Sherlock answers, frowning. He recognises the costume, he realises, but he can’t see past John to find the correct character in his mind. “Who are you?”

John strikes a pose. “Han Solo,” he laughs, and oh, Sherlock does remember. The release of  _Star Wars_ on video cassette had spurred several movie nights in 221B over the last few months, pressed together on the sofa, John’s fascination at the special effects distracting in the blue glow of the telly. “And you are?”

Sherlock strikes his own pose in response, holding out his arms to show off the gold damask waistcoat and darker overcoat, hanging almost to the back of his knees. “Good, isn’t it? Friend of mine works in reproductions at the V&A, owed me a favour. Antonio Salieri, at your service.”

John blinks, surprised, and then laughs again. “Not Mozart?”

“Couldn’t stand to wear the wig,” Sherlock jokes, dipping his head to point out his usual curls sitting in defiance of historical accuracy, secured by half a can of Aqua Net to be sure they would last. They’re his best look, after all, and he can’t afford to look anything less than his best tonight. It’s not like anyone will actually notice.

“Lucky for both of us, probably,” John says, giggling. He pushes himself off the doorframe and heads off toward the bathroom down the hall. “Let me just check my own hair and we’ll head out.”

Sherlock turns back to the mirror above the fireplace, checking his own reflection. Though the white powdered wig Mozart might have worn _was_ far too annoying to even be considered, Sherlock wasn’t really Mozart material anyway. Mozart was the best, the top, the number one—at least in Americanized Hollywood films—and simply put, Sherlock isn’t. Not in the only place that counts: in John’s life.

They’re flatmates, of course. Partners, obviously. Perhaps even friends. But no matter how close things feel, no matter how much time they spend together or how many cases they work or how many times they pull each other from whatever wreckage, John always has one eye looking elsewhere. For the next dinner, the next date, the next night out that turns into an early morning sneaking through the front door.

He’s looking, Sherlock knows, for someone to fall in love with.

Sherlock wants John to look at  _him._

He had, once. Looked at Sherlock, noticed him, thought  _maybe_ , and Sherlock knew it—the certainty of his gaze, the tilt of his body,  _so do you have a boyfriend, then? Which is fine, by the way._ Not a difficult deduction to make.

But Sherlock had panicked, caught by the surprise of someone being interested, by the surprise of being interested in someone. The surprise of someone alive and breathing and startlingly unpredictable, looking at him with expectant hope across the flame of an errant candle. Had said _no_.

He’d thought the feeling would probably go away, actually, once they knew each other better.

But where John’s attention divided itself between Sherlock and all the other people in the world, Sherlock’s interest had remained fixed, deepening, developing, thriving. Curiosity became reliance, became affection, became warmth. Tenderness and desire, two sides of a strange, freshly minted coin that settled somewhere between Sherlock’s ribs.

Love.

Bit of a shock, actually.

 _Look again_ , Sherlock has been thinking at him, wanting to be heard but too afraid to speak it aloud. He’s been thinking it for weeks now.  _Look again at me._

So while he could think of a lot of things he’d rather be doing on a Saturday night, Sherlock had leapt at this opportunity and agreed to go to Stamford’s Halloween party with John. Halloween parties were meant for looking, after all. For sharing the secret things that grow in the night, for laying teeth against necks. Whispered confessions in the dark. Impossibilities erupting into life, into reality, into hope.

The one night of the year that Sherlock could take a chance and, if he needed to, take it back in the morning. Blame it on the drinking, if he needed to, blame it on the lowered inhibitions and the atmosphere and the peculiarity that Halloween encouraged.

He hopes he won’t need to.

*

Ruffled cravats, knee breeches, hose and buckled shoes—only Sherlock could look so good in something that ought to be ridiculous. Only Sherlock, who was lithe and lean and confident in the boundaries of his body, in the ways he could make it move, in the things he could make it do; only Sherlock, who could ignore his own physicality and use it as a weapon and indulge its tactile cravings and not see the contradictions in himself. Only Sherlock, who was never perfect but who sometimes stumbled at the corners of John’s eyes, who had limits, who could be cut and who would bleed and who needed but somehow never begged.

The waistcoat, framing his hips. The line of his calves underneath the silk hose. The stretch of his neck above the collar, the length of his hands beneath the cuffs. The curl of his smile, knowing, cheeky and full of laughter ready to be drawn out.

This isn’t just a bit of trouble, John realises, standing in the shadows of the hallway, taking advantage of Sherlock’s focus on the mantelpiece to watch him without being seen. This is a full-blown, trial-by-fire crisis. This is a full-blown  _how-in-the-hell-do-I-get-through-this-without-looking-like-a-tit_ emergency.

Oh, but he is going to need a very large, very demanding distraction if he is going to get through the night.

“Boys!”

John looks up and has to laugh at himself a little. Not quite what he had in mind, he thinks, heading back into the sitting room, but Mrs Hudson does tend to be obligingly insistent.

She bustles in with a flurry of pink polyester taffeta and silver sequins, clapping with delight. “Oh, I was hoping to catch you before you left. Look at you two, just dashing, the both of you.”

“You look lovely, Mrs Hudson,” John returns, sharing an amused look with Sherlock over her head. “A princess, then?”

Mrs Hudson curtsies her confirmation, spreading the long skirt of her dress. The enormous shoulder pads and tall, pointed hat, complete with a bit of gauzy fabric spouting out of the top, threaten to tip her over. “Of course, John.” There’s a laugh hiding in Sherlock’s voice as he steadies her with a hand on her arm. “She’s hoping we’ll treat her like royalty if she dresses the part.”

“Quiet, you,” Mrs Hudson chides, giggling as she plants a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek. “Now, the two of you behave yourselves, and be quiet when you come in tonight, will you?”

“We never make promises,” Sherlock says loftily, and John finishes, “But we’ll try.”

Mrs Hudson grins, taking a minute to tease Sherlock about his ruffled cravat and to wink at John’s thigh holster, then she rustles back toward the door, pausing to lay a hand on John’s shoulder. “You bring him back in one piece, will you? No broken bones, no broken hearts.”

John stammers under the weight of her gaze. “I always do my best.”

“I know you do,” she says, her voice suddenly soft and meaningful, and she almost looks sad for a second. Then she’s gone.

An awkward silence fills the flat in her wake.  _No broken hearts._ John can at least appreciate the irony; it’s his own heart that’s in danger of breaking, not Sherlock’s. It’s his own heart that’s in danger of overreaching, of overstepping its bounds, and being turned away.

“Well,” Sherlock says after a minute, clearing his throat, “Shall we?”

*

Sherlock sits too close in the cab. They’d both opted against wearing coats despite the late October chill, not wanting to ruin the effect of their costumes, but Sherlock’s leg presses warm against his in an effort to combat the cold and John can’t think clearly.

He stares out the window, losing track of Sherlock’s rambling commentary on the probable effect of the full moon on crime rates given that the lunar cycle intersects with Halloween this year. Instead he wonders what it would be like to slide his palm over Sherlock’s thigh, to feel the silk slipping along skin, over muscle, and clenches his hands into fists. It would be so easy, just a matter of centimetres. So easy to reach, and touch, and know.

To ruin everything.

“It’s beautiful though, isn’t it?” Sherlock muses, leaning over John’s lap to look out at the night. His hair smells powdery and clean, like hairspray and something spicier that’s probably his cologne or maybe his aftershave. It takes John a second to remember that he’s talking about the moon. “Even if it does wreak havoc on your life.”

“Yeah,” John says, studying the profile of Sherlock’s face. “Yeah, it is.”

*

The party is already well underway by the time they arrive. Stamford had rented out a pub in Clerkenwell for the evening, and the room is dark and warm, teeming with people, a thread of fog filling the space from a cauldron of dry ice at the bar, music pulsing through with a synthetic beat overhead. The usual décor of taxidermy and old world maps have been strung with thick white cobwebs, candles crowd the mantelpiece of the fireplace, and dark red velvet curtains have been hung over the windows for privacy, making the room feel like it had been taken straight out of some ancient Transylvanian castle.

If Transylvanian castles also had red neon under their bars.

Sherlock shifts from foot to foot, eyes darting as he tries to take in everything at once. “Guess we should start with drinks,” John says, gesturing him forward.

The bar is all dark wood and glittering bottles and neon accents, with trays of shot glasses full of red liquor and pitchers of vibrant green drinks standing at the ready. Sherlock stands a little too close at John’s back, not allowing anyone to come between them as they jostle for space and the bartender’s attention, so John orders them both a beer he knows Sherlock will like and hands one of the pints over to him. Hopefully a drink or two will settle his nerves.

Together they slip into a dark corner behind a table to sip their drinks and get their bearings. Slowly, Sherlock begins to relax, murmuring identifications of people’s costumes into John’s ear, leaning in close in order to be heard over the rhythm of Technotronic and Madonna remixes: a World War II nurse, Charles Darwin, a can-can dancer. It’s tempting to just stay here all night, ensconced with Sherlock in this corner, drinking and laughing at people’s costumes, listening to him deduce everyone.

The whole point of coming, though, was to find something to take his mind  _off_ Sherlock, not to ignore everyone else for him, so John looks over the crowd and tries to find a few people he knows, or people he’d like to know. Someone that might be up for a drink and a dance, at least. There are several groups of Greeks and Romans, a couple of flappers, a couple of poodle skirts, Vikings and knights and everything in between. Shakespeare and King George III toss back shots at the bar; across the room, a female Robin Hood shares a drink with Maid Marian, hand on her waist.

Suddenly, John realises that everyone but himself seems to have one thing in common. “Sherlock? Was there some kind of theme for this party I didn’t know about?”

He looks over and Sherlock gives him a crooked smile that says he knows exactly what John is talking about, that he noticed it too that he’s been waiting for John to catch up and is unbearably pleased that he has. The familiarity of it shoots down John’s spine, warm and delicious. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then why am I the only person here  _not_ dressed as someone from history?”

The corners of Sherlock’s mouth tighten; he’s suppressing a giggle. “I guess,” he says, “You’re just ahead of your time.”

It’s a stupid joke, but they both laugh into their beers anyway, and John has to stop himself from leaning into Sherlock, from pressing closer in the dark to see the exact way the corners of his eyes scrunch up, the shy lopsided spread of his mouth that appears when he’s particularly happy.

 _Distraction_ , John reminds himself.  _You’re looking for a distraction from all of that._

“All right,” he says, draining his glass and setting it on the table. “I’m going to have a walk around a bit, hm?”

“Hm.”

“Try to find Stamford and say hi, would you?”

Sherlock hums. “Does that really seem like something I would do?”

“You would.”

“Would I?” There’s a very sceptical quirk of Sherlock’s eyebrow, but somehow John manages not to laugh and Sherlock gives in. “Oh, as you wish,” he says. “Go on, I’ll catch up with you later.”

John sets off into the room, letting the movement of the crowd carry him toward the dance floor. When he looks back for Sherlock a few moments later, Sherlock is gone.

*

Sherlock floats through the party for a while, moving with the beat of the music to slide through the crowd easily, picking up pieces of conversations here and there but not really paying attention. Eventually he finds a snack table and eats half a bowl of crisps, drinks another two drinks, and says hi to Stamford, as promised.

He’s avoiding, he knows. Letting the night slip him by. At this rate, he’ll never get his courage up to tell John . . . whatever he’s trying to tell John.

He had imagined things playing out differently, he supposes. That John—not actually wanting to be social but feeling the pressure to be—would do a circuit or two around the room and then come looking for Sherlock. That they’d find a quiet bit of space to share drinks, pressing closer so they could hear each other over the beat of the music. That John would be entranced by him, by the length of his neck above the high collar of his shirt, by the twist of his hands. That he would be charming and John would be charmed, and things would just sort of  _happen_ the way Sherlock wanted them to.

Instead John had taken off about an hour ago, chatting up different people, dancing a few times. He’d even bought someone dressed as Amelia Earhart a drink, tilting his body in toward them, focused on them and the conversation.

Sherlock had tried to seem busy himself, not wanting to look like he was waiting on John to come back for him. He’s not sure that he’s been successful.

But now John is on the dance floor dancing with some Jackie Kennedy, and Sherlock sees his opening. John’s obviously not terribly interested in his partner, judging by the full foot of space between them, which she keeps trying to close by reaching across to touch John’s waist. Sherlock notices with no small amount of satisfaction that, though John’s smile never wavers, he always takes a step back, re-establishing the distance between them.

Sherlock stops by the bar for another pair of beers and resolves to make his move.  _Now or never, Holmes_ , he thinks, bracing himself, but he just barely manages a few steps toward John before a man dressed as Napoleon, complete with the traditional bicorn hat, crowds close into Sherlock’s space, stopping Sherlock from moving around him.

“Perfectly horrific, isn’t it,” the Napoleon says, his voice low around the natural lilt of an accent, looking around the room. “All these people. It’s giving me a headache.” He swings his head back around to look Sherlock in the eye. His gaze is flat and cold and Sherlock feels a chill run down the back of his neck.

Sherlock hadn’t considered that someone other than John might try to chat him up. He scowls and draws back a little, dripping disdain. “Excuse you.”

The Napoleon only leans in closer, unable or unwilling to take the hint. “Love Halloween, though,” he says, taking a deep, exaggerated breath through his nose, his eyelids fluttering closed before releasing the breath with a sigh. “Death is so much closer to the surface, isn’t it? Just out of reach. Takes much less effort to just—” He reaches out and thrusts three fingers into Sherlock’s shoulder— “ _Push_ someone into it.”

“Disgusting,” Sherlock decides with a grimace, curling his lip back as his stomach twists. “Get out of my way.”

But the Napoleon only grins, all teeth. “I think,” he says slowly, his eyes crawling lazily up and down Sherlock’s body, “I think that slasher films are  _so_ much more interesting than dances, don’t you? All that death. The blood, the gore. You’d know all about blood and gore, wouldn’t you Sherlock? Or do you need a quick lesson?”

Bile rises in Sherlock’s throat and he takes another step back, suddenly feeling trapped, his hands too full of the two drinks to stop the Napoleon from stepping in again. The music, too loud, thumps in Sherlock’s chest, making him feel like he can’t catch his breath.  _I never feel trapped_ , he thinks in outrage, but it does nothing to overcome the feeling.

“Get out of my way,” Sherlock snaps again, and then John is there.

“Goodbye,” he says to the Napoleon, smiling that very certain smile that means,  _you can be done now or I can break you in half,_ and the Napoleon sneers—Sherlock almost expects him to hiss—but after a tense moment, he finally stalks away.

John puts one hand on Sherlock’s arm, looking him over as though he would be able to see where the Napoleon had touched him, then he takes one of the drinks out of Sherlock’s hands. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Sherlock assures him, hiding his sigh of relief and the rest of his nerves behind a sip of his drink. He steps in a little closer; John shifts his weight to let Sherlock into his space. “Yeah, he just gave me the creeps, that’s all. Kept talking about death.”

“Yeah, I can see how that’d be disconcerting when you’re not the one bringing it up for once,” John jokes, laughing a little, but his eyes on Sherlock are still serious, taking stock of him. The intensity of his gaze warms Sherlock’s belly, overtaking the chill the Napoleon left behind.

Sherlock shakes his head. “This was different,” he says, “Almost like it was personal.” He looks over the heads of the partygoers, but there’s no sign of a bicorn hat or the man underneath it. “I don’t know. Must be the drink getting to me.”

John watches him a few moments longer, assessing him, but then he seems to accept Sherlock’s word. He takes a swig of his drink and then grins devilishly, setting the glass, half-empty, back on the bar. “In that case then,” he says, like he’s made a decision, “I’d better take advantage of the opportunity and get you out on the dance floor before you’re too drunk. Come on, come and dance with me.”

Ten minutes ago, this is exactly what Sherlock wanted, but his courage seems to have abandoned him. If he goes now with John, who is warm and strong and protective and who came for Sherlock when Sherlock didn't need him but wanted him anyway, he knows he will not be able to resist the urge to fall into John, to press himself too close, and then the moment will be upon them and Sherlock isn’t ready to say the things he wanted to say. “Ah, no, no, I don’t think—”

“Bollocks,” John insists, taking Sherlock’s drink and depositing it on the bar next to his own before turning back and holding out his hand. His gaze is serious, significant even, and the idea that John also knows what might happen sprouts, irresistible, in Sherlock’s mind.  “Come and dance with me. Please.”

There’s nothing else Sherlock can do. He lets John lead him to the edge of the dance floor and tries to clear his mind of everything except the electronic rhythm of the song, but his mind is a jumble and it just gets lost, even as he tries to move his weight into it, to find the swing of it with his shoulders and hips and thighs. The movement feels awkward, foreign; he blows a breath out, thinking he must look incredibly stupid.

“Here,” John says, laughing and stepping in closer, sliding his hands over Sherlock’s hips and underneath the overcoat. “You’re thinking too hard. Focus on me, all right? Just move with me.”

The music is easier to follow with the physical cue of John’s body, the movement of his waist and arms awakening some long-forgotten muscle memory from Sherlock’s younger days, when clubs and bars were a more familiar landscape. The song rushes over them, a deep, synthetic bass that pounds in Sherlock’s chest, pulling his heartbeat faster and faster, and John doesn’t take his hands away. Instead he uses them to guide Sherlock, to pull him a little closer, and they move together—they always move together, always in sync, intrinsic and instinctive.

The flex and flute and stretch of muscle, exchanging space and heat, curling into and out of the lines of each other’s bodies: it is a dance Sherlock and John have danced a hundred times, moving inexorably closer, inevitable.

Then the song changes and the beat slows and deepens into something darker, something that lights the air with electricity, twisting and sensuous. John steps in closer yet, sliding one hand from Sherlock’s waist to the small of his back, pressing their bodies together, hip to hip, chest to chest, thighs brushing. Sherlock is lost to the music and the feeling of John’s hands, barely able to keep a thought in his head as they curve into one another, one of his own palms heavy on the back of John’s neck and the other, slightly more hesitant, on his waist, exploring more than steadying. The soft cotton of John’s shirt rubs against the pattern of the damask on Sherlock’s waistcoat, pushing it up, exposing the skin above the waistband of John’s jeans, and Sherlock brushes his fingers across it. John’s skin is hot and his muscles twitch; his breath hitches, close enough that it seems to steal the air out of Sherlock’s mouth.

Sherlock drags his eyes up and finds John’s staring back, clouded with the primal urge of desire, sparking some elemental magic like the roil of a thunderstorm over London, the arc of neon lightning through a lapis lazuli sky. Then John’s eyes drop to Sherlock’s mouth and Sherlock feels his lips part, accepting and urging and following.  _This is it,_ he thinks,  _I could kiss him, right now. He’s going to kiss me._

 _He’s going to kiss me._ Closer, slowing, arching into, drawing together.  _He’s going to—_

Then the music rips off the track into an abrupt silence.

The private moment bursts to pieces and Sherlock springs back at the same time John does, tearing their bodies apart like it burns. Sherlock’s breath comes ragged in his throat, like the air between them is scorched with the heat of the dance, and now nearly two feet away, John’s left hand slams into a fist, clenching around itself. Sherlock gives him a reassuring smile, if a little tremulous, not wanting to lose the moment entirely, but John only stares back with shock and confusion and maybe even shame.

 _Not going to kiss me, then,_ Sherlock thinks blankly. He can’t think anything else. He can’t react at all.

“Sherlock?” Mike yells into the ringing silence of the room. Every face in the bar turns to stare at him, at him and John, at the two of them together, and Sherlock suddenly feels sick. “Someone on the phone for you.”

*

The phone is in an office in the back of the pub, a desk and a chair shoved into a space the size of a cupboard. Sherlock wrenches the door open and doesn’t even bother to turn the light on, instead relying on the light from the hallway. The phone waits, sitting off its cradle, and he snatches it up.

“How did you even get this number?” Sherlock snaps, forgoing  _hello_ entirely, his chest still heaving from the dance and the—whatever John was about to do. He crushes the olive-green receiver hard against his ear, as though that will make Lestrade answer faster.

“John left it for me just in case of an emergency,” Lestrade answers without missing a beat. “Crime is always up on Halloween, he thought we might need you, and Christ, Sherlock, we really do.”

Sherlock huffs and looks around the office to glare at John, but John didn’t follow him in from the bar and Sherlock feels like he’s about to come out of his skin with interrupted adrenalin. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

John was about to  _kiss him,_ and then he’d stepped back, shocked and stunned and he hadn’t followed Sherlock for what seems like the first time  _ever_ , and Sherlock can’t deal with trivial crime right now, it’s not  _important_ , nothing has ever been as important as this.

“Not for the sake of a Halloween party, it can’t,” Lestrade shoots back, wholly unaware of Sherlock’s panic. “This one’s really an emergency, Sherlock, and I need you on it. I’ve got a Dutch dignitary of some kind here, worked with the Ministry of Defence, been stabbed to death in her own bedroom with one of her own kitchen knives. Her whole staff’s gone missing, the whole thing’s a complete disaster—”

“I can’t, Lestrade.”

“And never mind everyone else’s security, everyone’s upset and they’re all breathing down my—what?”

Sherlock twists his fingers into the tight curl of the phone cord. “I can’t come. Not tonight. I’m doing something important. Take pictures and get Forensics in there, and I’ll stop by tomorrow to look at it.”

There’s a brief but angry silence on the other end before Lestrade chokes out, “You can’t be serious. I’m giving you the murder of the year and you’re  _busy_?”

“I can’t miss this chance, Lestrade.”

“Damnit, Sherlock, get a hold of yourself. You’ve been waiting months for a case like this and you’re going to throw it away on a Halloween party? What do you mean, chance? Are you trying to score at that party? Where’s John, put John on.”

“I’m not trying to score, I’m trying to—Jesus, Lestrade,” Sherlock cuts off the tirade he wants desperately to jump on and instead leans against the wall next to the phone, studying the mess of papers on the desk to give himself some focus. John still hadn’t followed him, hadn’t poked his head around the doorway to ask what was going on. “It’s not drugs,” he starts again, much calmer. “I’m just trying to have a night off with John.”

Sherlock can practically hear Lestrade shaking his head on the other end of the line. “I need you here, and I need you right away, this case is bizarre, and it’s a security issue for top-level people, and if you would just. Fine, you know what? Fine. If you come, I’ll get you the clearances on the Morgan case.”

Oh, now that’s not playing fair at all. “The corruption case? You know I won’t have any compunction about pinning that right back on the Met.”

“I know. I’m desperate, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looks around. He’s still alone in the office, in the dark, the adrenalin in his veins slowing into more of a resigned sludge, and thinks he might as well. Whatever opportunity he might have had with John, it was over by the time John stepped back with a horrified look of realisation at how close they’d come.

“All right,” he sighs, standing and looking for a pencil and a scrap of paper. “What’s the address?”

*

John collapses back against the bathroom door after flipping the lock, his heart pounding in the sudden quiet. A weak light filters in through the frosted glass block window, silhouetting the shapes of the toilet, the sink. He thinks it’s lucky he can’t quite make out his own face in the mirror.

They’d been  _so close._                                                           

He doesn’t know how things got so out of hand, honestly. He thought, just a bit of a dance, just to see Sherlock loosen up a little, and then—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. Only that he put his hands on Sherlock’s hips, and when Sherlock caught the rhythm, he hadn’t pulled away. Only that the feel of his body under Italian damask, moving to the music, undulating and free and unself-conscious, had been exhilarating. Only that when he stepped in a little closer, Sherlock did too.

John stumbles to the sink and runs the water, splashing his face to clear his thoughts.  They’d been close enough that John could see the sweat forming on Sherlock’s brow, close enough to feel Sherlock’s breath on his cheek. Close enough to slide his own hand under Sherlock’s coat, to discover the silk of the waistcoat over the small of Sherlock’s back. Close enough to kiss him.

He would’ve done it in the next minute, John thinks. He would’ve kissed Sherlock.

And Sherlock hadn’t pulled away.

Did Sherlock just not realise what was about to happen? Did he simply not understand? But no, that’s impossible. Sherlock may not be a social virtuoso, but he  _is_ a genius. It’s not exactly a difficult deduction to make, not when their bodies were so much closer than they’d ever been before, with John’s hands on his waist and John’s eyes unable to tear themselves from the tiniest parting of Sherlock’s lips—

A loud knock on the bathroom door makes John jump. “Just a minute,” he calls, fumbling for a paper towel to dry his face.

 _Get a hold of yourself_ , John thinks. Sherlock has never been remotely interested in anyone, least of all John. It was probably just the alcohol talking, and whatever the conversation was, it was over.

When he opens the door, Sherlock is looming on the other side, filling up the frame. He looks John over with sharp, critical eyes and a downturned mouth. It’s not a happy sort of look at all.

“Come on, John,” he says, his voice unusually stiff. “There’s been a murder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Han Solo - Star Wars (1977 - 1983) - John's costume](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fb/06/9e/fb069e736d8d248fcabfbe484f14e4ab.jpg)  
> [Antonio Salieri - Amadeus (1984) - Sherlock's costume](http://merv2.tripod.com/abraham-22.jpeg)  
>  Find me on [Tumblr!](watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com)


	2. the kensington horror

The atmosphere inside the taxi is so tense that even the cabbie notices, turning the radio up too loud in a fruitless attempt to pierce the silence. Sherlock plasters himself up against the door, as far away from John as he can be in the backseat, trying not to remind himself of how close they had just been.

He can still feel the heat of John’s palms on his hips, ghosting through to his skin, a tease and a temptation and a terror.

The fifteen-minute ride to Kensington feels more like fifteen years and Sherlock just wants the night to be over.

*

The cab stops a few houses down from the crime scene, where the police have already cordoned off the area. Sherlock leaps out immediately, leaving John to follow with sweaty palms and a deepening sense of dread that is doing its best to fill the awkward silence between them.

 _At least he didn’t leave me behind, though_ , John thinks, trailing after Sherlock through a swarm of police officers.  _That’s got to count for something, right?_

“Sherlock, John, here!” Lestrade shouts from the front door of the last posh townhouse on the row, waving something that looks like a cowboy hat. Underneath his usual khaki trench, John can make out a pair of worn denims and a suede, fringed waistcoat over a plaid shirt. “Thank God, took you long enough.” He quirks a brow at Sherlock’s costume. “Who’re you supposed to be?”

“I’m  _supposed_ to be the person helping you solve a murder,” Sherlock sniffs, climbing the front steps, managing to still look haughty even in the ruffles and buckles. “Where’s the body?” 

Lestrade gestures inside and up the stairs, and Sherlock shoulders past him without another word. “Well, he’s in a mood,” Lestrade snorts, offering John a sympathetic look. “Must’ve been one heck of a party you were at. He kept telling me he was  _busy_ , I had to bribe him to get him out here.”

John stares, fumbling for a response as a tiny flicker of incredulous hope lights in his stomach. If Sherlock had said he was busy, of all things, when he’d just been out with John, when he’d just come off the dance floor with John—if he hadn’t wanted to leave that party—if Lestrade had offered him a murder and Sherlock had needed a bribe to take it— _definitely a good sign, right?_

But of course John can’t say any of that to Lestrade, so instead he says, “You look like you were at one yourself. Who’re you then? Some outlaw sheriff?”

“Just the outlaw tonight,” Lestrade says. “Billy the Kid. My wife’s bringing a change of clothes ‘round.”

“No, she’s with the P.E. teacher,” Sherlock shouts from inside. Lestrade curses. “Are you coming? I thought you said this was urgent.”

And suddenly John is eager for the case, eager for the adventure, to be at Sherlock’s side again, to show Sherlock that they are still a team here, whatever else they might be. A fresh surge of adrenalin lights in his veins and he follows Lestrade into the pristine foyer and looks up the sweeping staircase to see Sherlock half-hanging over the polished wood banister, looking perfectly at ease in this posh house with his posh costume, and John can’t suppress his grin.

 _You didn’t want to leave that dance floor, did you?_ John thinks at him, letting a little sly smile form on his lips, and the tight corners of Sherlock’s mouth seem to loosen.  _I had it all wrong. You wanted to stay there with me._

“Coming,” John yells back up, waving Sherlock on, and there’s just the slightest edge of a hesitant smile on Sherlock’s face before he’s gone, disappearing into the depths of the townhouse.

*

The bedroom is a mess: unmade bed with sheets falling off, clothes strewn all over the floor, the victim’s body bloody and slumped down into an awkward space between the wall and a vanity stool. The clock by the bed blinks steadily at three-fifteen.

Sherlock stands in the middle of it all with an intense look on his face, like he’s doing a set of very complicated maths. When John comes in, his eyes twitch toward him, only the smallest of movements but to John it says volumes: he’s waiting for John, to see what he’ll do, to see if he’ll follow.

Of course John will. Even if Sherlock had dashed off the dance floor in a flurry of excitement, he would follow. Even if Sherlock never brought up what had happened there again, even if Sherlock kept his distance, even if he made it clear he didn’t want anything more than what they had.

As long as Sherlock didn’t tell John to go, John would follow.

But that is another story told be told another time, because right now there’s a dead body on the floor and they’re here to figure out why. John slips by Sherlock and kneels by the victim’s head, snapping on a pair of gloves he’d snagged from a passing officer and adjusting the leather holster still strapped to his thigh.

“Female, forties, maybe early fifties,” he recites. Behind him, Sherlock gives an acknowledging hum. “Several stab wounds to the stomach area. Must’ve been sitting here and fallen off the stool when she was attacked. Looking at the hands—no real defensive wounds. Must have taken her by surprise.”

“Then the victim trusted the killer,” Lestrade says. “Someone she might’ve shared this bed with, judging by the mess.”

“No . . . I don’t think so,” John disagrees, carefully lifting one side of the victim’s dressing gown to expose the expanse of her stomach. “I think that’s just the way the room was when the killer got here. Look here, at the wounds—they’re exacting. Clean edges. Used a very sharp tool, of course, but there was a deliberate in and out, without dragging the knife around through the flesh. Tidiest knife wounds I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure.”

“And very little blood splatter,” Sherlock adds, crouching down to inspect the carpet. “A sure hand, then, not a panicked one. Intimacy implies passion, usually, but this . . . it’s almost like a business transaction.”

“Intimacy can be a business transaction,” Lestrade argues. John stands, tuning out the conversation and looking back over the room. Something in the vanity, the position of the body, the position of the stool, seems strange to him, almost familiar. He goes back to the doorway of the bedroom, looking in over the bed to the vanity in the corner. He steps in again, toward the vanity, and the déjà vu is almost overwhelming.

“Hold on,” he says quietly, “Wait.”

Sherlock holds a hand out to Lestrade, stopping him mid-sentence, and stares intently at John. “What do you see?”

“I’m not sure.” John shakes his head, trying to clear it. “I must be imagining it.”

“You’re not one to imagine things.” Sherlock steps in close, blocking out the sight of the body, the bed, Lestrade looking confused in the corner. “You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t see it.”

He’s further away than he was when they were dancing but he’s still closer than he’d been since they left the pub, utterly focused on John, and the heady realisation of Sherlock not having wanted to leave the party at all is fresh and distracting. John wonders if they’ll ever get that moment back, moving together on the dance floor, both of them knowing what was about to happen and not shying away from it, or if they’ll be stuck here instead, standing too close at crime scenes and watching every chance slip away.

 _Focus._ John swallows and closes his eyes, reconstructing the crime scene in his mind, laying over the gold-striped wallpaper with something plainer, laying over the opulent bed with thin sheets and a simple frame. It seems impossible, and yet, here it is: undeniably the same.

“I know this scene,” he says finally, opening his eyes again. “It’s the opening murder of  _Halloween_.” Sherlock’s brow furrows. “No, I mean the film.  _Halloween_ , the film. With Michael Myers? The killer in that terrible Captain Kirk mask?”

Lestrade groans from across the room. “No, no, it can’t be.”

“Sherlock said the knife was from the kitchen, right?” John remembers, growing more certain as Sherlock turns back into the room, letting John see the details again. “And the bed here, the vanity there, only four or five stab wounds—in the film, it’s almost laughable, but this—I’m certain that’s what this is.”

“Great,” Lestrade says sarcastically. “Bloody fantastic. You’re telling me I’ve got some deranged kid out there with a copycat killing fetish, is that all?”

“No,” Sherlock contradicts immediately. “No, you’ve got something far more dangerous on your hands, I think. Lestrade—the killer didn’t set up this scene, they came into it. They found someone whose bedroom already looked like this, didn’t they? So it was intentional, directed. It took planning.”

“All right, I’ve got a carefully deranged kid with a copycat killing fetish, then.”

“No, shut up. John, you remember that man at the party? The Napoleon?”

John nods. He’d been dancing, had looked over and saw Sherlock—not cowering, Sherlock didn’t cower, but unsettled. Maybe no one else would have even recognised it for what it was, but John—John knew it as soon as he saw it, because he’d never seen it before: fear. “You said he talked to you about death.”

“He talked about  _slasher films_ , specifically said that slasher films are so much more interesting than dances, he said— _oh._ ” Sherlock twists around, meeting John’s gaze. “He said my name.  _You’d know all about blood and gore, wouldn’t you, Sherlock?_ He knew me, but I didn’t know him, I didn’t realise—”

John is already at the door, understanding rippling like panic through his gut. “Then he was there because he knew you would be. It’s directed at you; it’s targeted at  _you_. We’ve got to go back and find out who the hell he was.”

“Hang on,” Lestrade yells from behind them as John and Sherlock take off down the stairs. “What do you mean, directed at you?”

“He wanted me to know this was him,” Sherlock yells back. “He wanted my attention.”

“He’s certainly got it,” John says under his breath as he follows Sherlock’s mad dash out the door and down the steps, back to the main road to find another cab. The night feels like it’s reversing back, already unraveling the awkward tension between them as the familiarity of a case washes over them, rushing back to the party, to the dance floor left behind so unceremoniously, as though the crime scene had only been an interlude and the music is starting again, the both of them preparing to move together once more. “But I bet he’ll regret it before tomorrow.”

*

As expected, the party has continued to gain steam and rage on, more bodies packing into the room, smoke hanging heavily overhead and gathering the hint of blue and red neon light and reflecting it back over the crowd. Sherlock-on-a-case is much more confident than Sherlock-being-social, and John watches with a surge of affection as he jumps back into the party with relative ease, so naturally secure in his single-minded mission to identify the Napoleon and solve the case that it doesn’t even occur to him to be nervous like he was before.

He loves Sherlock like this: bold and self-assured, charging into battle without stopping to doubt himself. Unfailing courage wrenched forth from a soft, small insecurity John can still see sometimes from the corner of his eye, the relic of a past where Sherlock was called many things but never brilliant.

John makes sure to call him brilliant, these days.

They find Stamford at a table by the bar, red-faced and jovial and wrapped in a white toga with a long purple stripe on the length of fabric slung over his arm. Sherlock frowns and takes a deep breath, and John elbows him before he can launch into a criticism of historical accuracy. The frown deepens but what comes out, through somewhat of a stronger public school accent than usual, is only, “Evening, Stamford.” John tries not to laugh.

“Sherlock!” Mike exclaims upon seeing them. He’s obviously fairly drunk, his usual quiet professionalism devolving back into the more boisterous personality John had known in uni. He claps them both on the shoulders. “And Han Solo, too, hello! Did you solve your crime already? Save the universe again?”

“Still working on it, actually,” John says, giving a rakish grin and keeping his tone casual, not wanting to raise any alarm. Next to him, Sherlock fiddles with his cuffs, impatient. “Listen, do you know, there was a bloke here earlier dressed like Napoleon, did you see him?”

Mike laughs and feigns a thinking face. “Napoleon, huh? Is he helping you two?”

“Think hard,” Sherlock interjects, much more seriously. “He would’ve been dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a bit of an accent. You wouldn’t have recognised him from anywhere else but I bet he would’ve had a really good reason for being here. Bicorn hat, epaulettes, decorative medals? You wouldn’t have liked him but you wouldn’t have known why.”

“Yeah,” Mike says, a bit taken aback by Sherlock’s severity. He looks between them, his cheer sliding into confusion. “Yeah, he came with Molly—is he involved in something? Is there a problem?”

Sherlock ignores his concern. “Molly? Molly Hooper? Is she still here?”

“Yeah, ‘course. Thought I just saw her at the bar a moment or two ago, she’s wearing some kind of old-looking armour. That guy, though, he was—excitable, maybe. Seemed odd. Look, is there something going on here?”

“No,” John assures him as Sherlock abruptly walks away, slipping back into the fray ostensibly to look for Molly Hooper. “I don’t think he’ll cause any more trouble here tonight.” He says a brief goodbye and by the time he cranes his head to look for Sherlock in the crowd, Mike is already back to his beer and his laughter, worries forgotten.

*

The electronic beat of the music feels nearly routine by now, and Sherlock wonders briefly whether he’ll remember it as intimate or cold after tonight. Whether he’ll be reminded of John pressed so close every time a bass line drops into a certain rhythm, whether he’ll be haunted by the ghost of John’s breath across his mouth every time he finds himself watching a dance floor.

He’s watching the dance floor now, the same one he and John were on less than two hours ago, moving together, moving closer, and not even the novelty of a case has been enough to smooth the rough edges of the memory: John stepping in, John jumping away. John’s face in shock and in shame.

But John hasn’t left him, and Sherlock hangs onto that, digs his fingernails into it. John followed him to the crime scene, followed him back, even offered up a smile or two.  _It’s okay_ , John is telling him.  _We’re okay._

He wishes he could believe it.

It’ll start like this: okay. Then it’ll lead to  _kindness_ , and Sherlock doesn’t think he can bear it. John, trying to sneak out for dates instead of just announcing where he’s going, like he always has done before, or shutting himself in the hallway with the phone, cord stretched taut between cradle and receiver where it’s caught between the door and the frame, because it’s kinder not to shove it in Sherlock’s face, not to flaunt it.

And then the final conclusion will be resentment, and it will have already started and ended here on this dance floor in the heady beat of a synthetic pop song.

Molly Hooper herself is on the dance floor now, having apparently traded the Napoleon for a broad-chested Genghis Khan. Sherlock shifts his way toward them and gets her attention with a hand on her shoulder, which is covered in grey plastic armour. “Molly, could I borrow you for a moment?” To the Genghis Khan, who nearly has teeth bared, he says, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring her right back to you,” and he leads her off to the side of the room.

“Sherlock, hello,” Molly says, confused. “What’s going on?”

John finds them then, sidling up and giving Molly a quick smile. “It’s all right,” he says, “It’s just that we’re looking for the man you came here with tonight, looked like he was dressed like Napoleon?”

Molly looks back and forth between them, trying to decide whether to be suspicious. “Um, yeah,” she says. “Jim. I don’t really know him that well, you know, he’s just a work friend. He’s IT at Bart’s. He reads your spot though, John, in that crime magazine, what is it?  _A Matter of Crime_? We’re all looking forward to the next issue.”

“Ah, thanks,” John says, giving her a genuine smile. “The next one’s a good one, you’ll love it, it’s about that case with the waxworks we had three months back, and—”

Sherlock tunes them out, losing himself briefly as his mind splits off from the case, distracted. John’s spot in  _A Matter of Crime_ is all about him, of course, about him and John together, solving cases like the trench-coated detectives of film noir, all cynicism and the cigarette smoke. The veneer of fiction is sometimes inaccurate, but when Sherlock reads them with John across the sitting room, writing the next, it almost feels protective of the reality they share in 221B: warm and cosy and shared spaces, shared lives.

If John leaves, obviously, there won’t be anything for John to write about. There will be no adventures, nor any comfortably quiet nights in. There will only be the work. Work was what Sherlock had before John. It wasn’t enough.

Sherlock shakes himself, trying to dispel the thought. The case isn’t even over yet; he’s getting too far ahead of himself, theorising without all the facts. He forces himself instead to tune back into the conversation. “He was really excited when he heard you’d be here tonight,” Molly tells John. “And Sherlock, ‘course. Did you meet him? He was really hoping you’d be here. Wait—is he all right?”

“No such thing as coincidence,” Sherlock mutters to John. “Molly, do you know where he is now?”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know, really. He said he had another party to go to, somewhere off by Waterloo station. He kept joking about it. Napoleon, Waterloo.” She gives a weak, nervous laugh. “He is all right though?”

_Waterloo. Bakerloo, Northern, Jubilee, Waterloo & City. National Rail. Meet me under the clock. Waterloo Sunset—West End Girls—Shell UK—_

“We’ve no reason to believe he’s not,” John says truthfully, dodging having to tell her that her date was very likely a murderer. “Do you know where he lives? His last name? Anything else you can tell us about him?”

_1815 and the Hundred Days. The Seventh Coalition—the Netherlands—The whole of that plain is a sepulchre for France._

“His last name is . . . hm. Morstan? Moran? Mor . . . something. Mor-something. Sorry, I don’t really know him very well.”

_The whole of that plain is a sepulchre._

“All right, thanks, Molly. Nice armour, by the way.”

_You’d know all about blood and gore, don’t you, Sherlock? Or did you need a quick lesson?_

Molly grins, touching a plastic sword attached to her side. “My family’s French,” she says, blushing. “It’s Joan of Arc.”

“And Genghis Khan is waiting for you,” Sherlock answers, cutting the conversation off. Joan of Arc and the Napoleon; the saint and the emperor. That’s important, Sherlock thinks. The symbology of using her, deceiving her, and leaving her behind. Napoleonic in ambition, perhaps, but not French in spirit. His objectives will mirror, but not coincide: power and domination, but not in the name of anything holy.

“Nothing good is going to come out of having a Napoleon anywhere near a Waterloo,” John says. “We need to get a hold of Lestrade again, I think.”

*

Together they crowd into the back office. Sherlock calls New Scotland Yard and leaves a message for Lestrade to call him back at Stamford’s, but they just have to wait until he calls them back so they can tell him where they’re going, what to look for, see what information they can find about a Jim from IT at St Barts’ hospital.

John leans heavily in the doorframe, listening to the sounds of the party down the hall, faraway and oblivious. Sherlock doesn’t turn on the office light as he slumps against the opposite wall, so it’s just the two of them, standing in the half-light, on pause, and John racks his brain for a reason to step in, to ask about the moment on the dance floor, about the bribe Lestrade apparently had to promise, but he can’t. He can’t ask Sherlock to focus on anything but the case.

Then Sherlock looks up, his pale eyes startling in the darkness, and says, “I’m sorry this took over your night. I know you were looking forward to this.”

It is doubtlessly the frankest apology Sherlock has ever delivered and for a moment John can only stare at him. “I was,” John admits, finally. “But I always like to be on a case with you, Sherlock. This is what we do, yeah? We’re partners in this.”

Sherlock eyes him across the room, as if trying to decide whether he’s being genuine or not. “We’re good partners,” he says, a little hesitantly, almost like he’s trying to get it out before he loses his nerve. “I’m—better. When you’re with me.”

John feels the heat blossoming in his cheeks and he dips his head with the brief rise of embarrassment, grinning. “I’m glad to be with you.” He risks a look up; even in the half-light of the tiny office, he can see a blush forming high on Sherlock’s cheekbones as well, so he decides to take the extra leap and adds, “And you, um. You look really good in that outfit. The cravat. Thing. It really suits you. Here, you know, it’s a little off-centre, let me—”

And he pushes off the doorframe, reaching out, and Sherlock doesn’t shy away. John steps in and uses both hands on the knot of the cravat, straightening the linen, brushing against the hot skin of Sherlock’s neck. He feels it when Sherlock swallows. “There.”

“Will you write about this?” Sherlock asks quietly. “When you write up the case. The. The costumes, I mean.”

No, he doesn’t, John thinks. He doesn’t mean the costumes at all. He means the other thing, the secret, heady thing yet unspoken, the way the space between them has all but disappeared. John writes true crime adventures; Sherlock is asking him if he could write a romance.

John’s hands linger for a moment longer. He can’t draw them back; his thumb strokes over the column of Sherlock’s neck above the linen, unmistakably intentional. The room feels like it is closing in, pressing them together, and  _if not now,_ John thinks,  _then when?_

“Sherlock,” he begins. There are still several centimetres between their bodies but there might as well not be, for as close as everything feels. “There’s something I think I should say.”

Then the phone rings.

This time, John doesn’t step away.

*

For a long moment, Sherlock doesn’t move, staring at John across the tiny space between them. John stares back. The air feels electric, sparkling and hot with the unspoken thing on the tip of John’s tongue, and Sherlock knows, he  _feels_ the significance of it.

The phone rings again.

And again.

Finally, Sherlock fumbles for the receiver, trying to pick it up without looking away, but his fingers are clumsy and he can’t quite sort out the shape of it in his hand. He looks down for it; John steps away, retreating back into the doorway. When Sherlock finally brings the receiver up to speak, he finds himself unsteady and out of breath. “S-Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock, good,” Lestrade huffs down the line. “Listen, there’s been another one. Victim was a West German official this time, doing something with the Home Office, where are you?”

“Another one?” Sherlock repeats. This time when his eyes meet John’s, the focus has shifted back to the case—eyebrows raised, shoulders tense, the moment before forgotten under the importance of the next moment they will have to anticipate. Sherlock feels strangely chastised, as if he’s ridiculous for even considering anything other than the case, as if he’s absurd for thinking something was just about to happen. “And now both are government.”

“Yeah, and I recognised this one,” Lestrade goes on. “The murder, I mean, it’s pretty distinctive. Friday the 13th, another American slasher flick—

 _Friday the 13th?_ Sherlock mouths to John.

“Well, it really shouldn’t be physically possible. But the victim was lying down, and the killer apparently pushed an arrow up through the bottom of the bed, no idea how—”

John looks thoughtful for a moment, then disgusted.  _The one with the arrow?_

“Maybe it was already there and he fell on it? Not sure—”

 _I guess,_ Sherlock shrugs, then, to Lestrade, he asks, “When? Where?”

“Uh, they’re telling me it must have been an hour, hour and a half ago? Not more than that. Just off Paddington station.”

“Quick getaway, then,” Sherlock notes, running strings along the mental map forming in his head, searching for connections, trying desperately to forget about John pressed so close, trying to write the feeling of John out of his skin.  _Not to your advantage, Sherlock._ “But that was when we were at the party the first time, the Napoleon was here then, how could he be committing a murder while talking to—oh!  _Oh!_ Do you see? He’s  _Napoleon_ —not the soldier, the  _commander_. The Emperor. He’s not doing the killing, he’s just giving orders, orchestrating, all behind the scenes—”

“Showing us that he has an army at his disposal,” John finishes. “A display of power. But then what’s he doing off by Waterloo station if he’s not committing the murders?”

_The whole of that plain is a sepulchre._

“Rewriting history, I think,” Sherlock says slowly, excitement and dread rising in his belly with equal measure, competing for space among the fluttering John left behind. “Lestrade, we’re going to a party off by Waterloo station. Try to dispatch a few extra officers to the area, will you? I’ll call you again when we have him.” He hangs up without waiting for a reply. “Suppose we might as well take the Tube over, then.”

John eyes the phone; he does not look back at Sherlock. “How will they know where to find us if you don’t even know what party we’re going to?”

“There’s only one Halloween party worth going to in the vicinity of Waterloo station tonight,” Sherlock explains, “and it’s one the Napoleon can’t afford to miss. Rewriting history takes an awfully big impression, after all.”

“Yeah? And where’s that?”

Sherlock gives a flourish of his ruffled wrists. “The Old Vic, of course.”

“The theatre? Really?”

“Yes, really. Now let’s go, we’ve apparently got to win the Battle of Waterloo all over again tonight.”

*

The Tube is crowded, stuffed full with far more people than usual at this hour. Half of them are bedecked in elaborate fancy dress; the other half are wallowing in that particular sort of exasperation that comes from having to do something you don’t want to do on a night it’s terribly inconvenient to do it on. John can relate. He meant it when he said he was always happy to be on a case with Sherlock, of course, but in honesty, tonight he’d much rather just take Sherlock home, lock the door, and finally get to the bottom of whatever game they’re playing  _without_ interruption.

But John can’t do that, so he’ll just have to take the long way around and help Sherlock solve the case first.

Sherlock, for his part, had been more or less silent since they’d left the party, presumably thinking everything over. John looks up at him and tightens his grip on the standing pole they’re sharing. “Why do you think he’s teasing you? Do you think he wants to be stopped?”

Next to them, a very drunk Beethoven, who has been flirting with an equally drunk Anastasia, stumbles, forcing Sherlock to step closer. John steps in too, an automatic reaction; if he put out his pinky finger, it would drag over Sherlock’s waistcoat. Judging by the look on Sherlock’s face, he notices too, and John tries to swallow down a grin.

“Not really,” Sherlock says after a long moment. “No, I think he wanted me to know about it, but he didn’t give me any information to stop him. Not even a motive; people who want to be stopped will usually try to at least say why they’re doing it. No, I think he wants me to be . . . helpless.”

“Why, though?”

“Why do any psychotic murderers want people to feel helpless?”

“I mean, why  _you?_ Why direct this at you?”

“Why not me?” Sherlock shrugs. “I solve crimes and I’m good at it, so why not try his hand? He probably read your articles and thought, oh, let’s play a bit of a game. Why not target a famous detective and rub it in his face that he won’t be able to stop the murders, much less solve them?”

There: guilt. Fear. They tended to crop up only on the biggest cases, the ones that kept Sherlock running for days, and John loves Sherlock for these emotions too. Responsibility. Duty. Dead-giveaways that Sherlock is not a machine, that he doesn’t investigate crime and mysteries because he likes a puzzle. He does it because they’re important. Because if he doesn’t, there’s a chance no one else will. And this Napoleon knew exactly which of Sherlock’s buttons to press to get those feelings rising up in him.

John nudges in a little closer out of a familiar urge to comfort that he never indulges. “But why these murders now, then? What’s the point?”

“They’re symbolic—a West German, a Dutch, both areas of Europe that were involved in the original Battle of Waterloo. And the movie copycats were just an excuse to get my attention, I think. It’s Halloween. It gave him a good line at the bar.”

“You mean, he did it for the pun?”

Sherlock laughs, and John can feel some of the tension in his body start to ease at the surprise of it.  “A bit, yes. But the point, you have to remember, is that he’s the Emperor fighting for his throne. He’s asserting dominance over someone in power, taunting them, so it stands to reason that the next victim will be someone in a position to eliminate him, to rob him of that power. But I don’t know what kind of power we’re dealing with.”

Then train car jerks, and Sherlock jostles forward in an attempt to keep his balance, and John automatically puts out a hand to his waist, helping to steady him. Their eyes meet. John can feel Sherlock’s breath on his mouth.

“Could be anything,” John says, and he didn’t intend for his voice to sound that low, that rough. “Always surprises me, the things people are willing to kill for.”

Sherlock leans forward, an incredibly miniscule movement in an even smaller space, and he’s close, too close. “You killed for me, once,” he says.

“Yeah.” John is whispering, his voice out of his own control. “I did.” And then the train car rocks again, pushing them against one another, and suddenly John isn’t sure anymore whether it’s Sherlock’s breath or his mouth brushing over his lips, and John can’t move.

The train car begins to slow, their bodies swaying, and the pressure solidifies against John’s lips, warm and a little damp and there’s  _movement_ and there’s  _taste_ , John’s hand cupping Sherlock’s jaw, his body only millimetres away. Sherlock’s nose against his nose. Sherlock’s skin against his skin, John’s hand closing over his on the standing pole, Sherlock’s hand closing over John’s hip just above the line of the utility belt, slung too low, fingertips reaching up under the hem of John’s shirt, hot and curious. When Sherlock closes his eyes, John imagines he can feel the sweep of his eyelashes against his skin, and there’s hands and heat and slick tongues and then the car stops and their bodies settle into stillness, leaning against one another.

“Oh,” John breathes, because never in a million years did he expect to kiss Sherlock Holmes,  _finally_ , in a tube car on Halloween. “Oh.”

Then the doors are opening, and Sherlock breaks away and before John even realises he’s leaving, he’s gone.

*

Every nerve in Sherlock’s body burns, igniting in fear and panic as he twists himself away, off the train car and into the waiting crowds. He can hear John scrambling after him, calling for him, “Sherlock, wait! Wait!”

He does not wait. He makes his way down the platform and toward the escalators to the street level, not slowing his stride for John’s shorter one, not caring whether he ever even catches up.  _Oh_ , John had said.  _Oh_ , like he was surprised, like he didn’t mean to do it.  _Oh_ , like kissing Sherlock was an unexpected mix-up, like he’d accidentally picked up someone else’s bag and he’d only just realised what he’d done.

It wasn’t fair, Sherlock thought stonily, breathing hard through his nostrils. He’d been so close, right there, and John had leaned into him—had looked up through half-lidded eyes—had kissed Sherlock. Or maybe kissed back. Sherlock wasn’t even sure beyond the rush of hope and finally and he’d thought, with John here, touching him, sliding his hands onto Sherlock’s skin, that John wanted, that John understood, that John was making a choice.

And then John had said it:  _oh_. Like he meant to say,  _whoops_ , and expected Sherlock to laugh.

“Sherlock, wait, let me explain.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Sherlock snaps, not turning to look at John trailing behind him. “We’ve got to go. The Napoleon will probably already be there.”

He steps up the escalator and keeps going, shouldering his way past people in an attempt to leave John behind. He knows it’s foolish, that he’s walking toward an old theatre with a brand-new problem, that he can’t afford to face down the unknown of the Napoleon without John to back him up, but that little  _oh_ resounds through his mind and he can’t think clearly.

It doesn’t matter, Sherlock decides, ignoring his own bitterness. Of course it doesn’t. He knew this was a possible outcome, after all; it’s only a shame now that he won’t have the cover of alcohol and a hangover to pretend like it didn’t happen. He obviously can’t hold John to it; he will have to make it clear that he has no expectations, that he doesn’t want if John doesn’t want.

It’s pretty clear that John doesn’t want.

Sherlock leads the way out of the station, ignoring John behind him as they emerge onto the street, loud and crowded. He doesn’t need to hear explanations. The only thing that is left is the work, so that is what he will do. Solve the case. Stop the Napoleon. Forget about anything else.

“All right,” Sherlock says, pulling the walls up around his disappointment and turmoil and bricking it in, where it will hopefully be suffocated out by the bounds of reality. The steadiness of his own voice impresses him. “Now, this party is obviously invitation only, but follow my lead and it shouldn’t be a problem. Keep an eye out for anything unusual, of course, and if you see anyone who looks out of place, you know what to do. Ready?”

“Wait,” John says. “Sherlock,  _wait—_ ”

He reaches out and grabs Sherlock by the wrist, tugging him back. His touch burns. “Really, John, this is unnecessary.”

John doesn’t let go, though, until he’s managed to tug Sherlock down to the relative privacy of a side-alley, shadowy and forlorn in the bright bustle of a holiday night. Sherlock makes a point not to look at him. “Sherlock, please,” John starts. He sounds breathless, anguished even, so when he drops Sherlock’s wrist, Sherlock can’t bring himself to dart away. “On the Tube—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that, I just. I’m sorry, okay? It was an accident.”

“It’s fine,” Sherlock says, utterly blank. The words are like knives, peeling back his skin to imprint themselves in the red of his muscle:  _I didn’t mean to. Nobody, not even me, would mean to._ “I understand. Just an accident. You would never.”

“It’s not fine,” John argues, frustrated. His hands flutter between them, like he wants to touch Sherlock again but doesn’t dare. “I  _would_ , of course I would, I want to. I want to.” Sherlock’s eyes snap to John’s and John’s are wide, and afraid, and desperate. “I want to,” he repeats quietly. “I just wanted it to be more than an accident in a tube car, okay? And I think you did, too.”  

A silence draws out as Sherlock’s mind tries to process it, tries to understand the  _oh_ alongside the  _I want to,_ everything John’s words are saying, everything John’s eyes are telling him.

“Oh,” Sherlock breathes, _oh,_ like, _oh, that’s unexpected but it’s fantastic at the same time, oh_ , like, _okay, yes._ “Yes.”

John’s hand settles on Sherlock’s waist, hot and trembling. “Could I. Could I give it another go? Try it properly this time?”

Sherlock can’t breathe. Can’t move. Manages, barely, to nod his head, and then John’s hands are there, holding his head gently, guiding him forward when Sherlock finds he cannot guide himself, fingertips sliding along his skin, and he reaches up and kisses Sherlock, softly, tenderly, and it’s not until John starts to pull away that Sherlock can press back, following John’s mouth and kissing him back before John slips away.

“Is this okay?”

Sherlock’s breath shudders out of him, warm and bewildered on John’s lips. “Yes,” he whispers. “John.”

John strokes his thumb over Sherlock’s cheek, watching him. “Okay,” he agrees, and kisses Sherlock again. And again. And again, deeper, harder, delving and seeking and licking, drawing out the noises trapped in Sherlock’s chest, pressing him into the brick wall of the alley, certain and wanting and sure.

Eventually, out of breath and full of urgency, Sherlock pulls back. John, half-lidded and pink-cheeked, licks his lips, and Sherlock can’t help but press another almost-chaste kiss to them. “We’ve got—John, the Napoleon, we’ve got to deal with this.”

John groans. “Yeah,” he agrees reluctantly. “Yeah, all right, let’s finish this. We’ve got a lot to talk about, I think.”

Everything Sherlock would say resounds throughout his mind, ricocheting in a desperate effort to be heard:  _I love you I want you I need you I love you loveyouloveyouloveyou_.  _Please mean this the way I mean this. Mean this forever._

He can’t say that here, not yet, not when there’s still a murderer to be caught and so much space and time and night yet between them and the safety of their flat. He wants to save those things for when he can whisper them and not worry about being heard; he wants to save those things for when they can be the soft truths that they are, rather than confessions on the eve of war.

But he  _will_ say them, Sherlock promises himself, leading John out of the alley and back into the din and rush of the crowd, back into the streets of London, made battleground by the ghosts of long-defeated commanders. And as John threads their fingers together, he dips his chin to hide his smile and hopes that John will say them back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["The whole of that plain is a sepulchre to France."](https://web.archive.org/web/20071012165710/http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/77/)   
>  [A Matter of Crime.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mask_\(magazine\))   
>  [The Battle of Waterloo.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo)   
>  [London Waterloo station.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Waterloo_station)


	3. psycho

Sherlock’s hand is warm in his and there’s a distracted smile at the corner of his mouth and John is _incandescent_ with the joy of it all.

Everything feels new, reborn, like a film has been peeled away from the world and finally John can see things transforming from the-way-things-are into the-way-things-ought-to-be: alignment and understanding and _finally_ all wrapped up with a sense of _being allowed,_ as though John has been walking beside Sherlock all these months and has only just found his proper place there. 

Sherlock kisses like he’s cresting a roller coaster: that trembling hesitation, wavering a moment on the edge, uncertain even as he takes the plunge.

John wants to kiss him until he _soars_.

*

But first: the case.

“Just follow my lead,” Sherlock whispers into John’s ear, obviously thrumming with the same excited, impatient energy—the layer of a laugh behind his words, the squeeze of his hand around John’s.

John just nods in response, because if he looks over right now, he’s going to have to kiss Sherlock again right in the middle of the road, London traffic be damned.

Only the middle set of doors to the Old Vic are open, ensuring that anyone coming in has to pass by the security personnel and check their names off whatever exclusive list. A broad, beefy version of Abraham Lincoln fills the frame, holding his clipboard with a certain sense of importance and apathy.

“Names?” The Lincoln prompts as they approach. He eyes John’s costume with more than a hint of disdain, but doesn’t say anything.

“Bit of an antiquated system,” Sherlock throws back immediately. “What if I knew half a dozen names on that list? I could just give you any of them, and you wouldn’t even know if I was telling the truth about who I am.”

The Lincoln blinks. John has to snort back a surprised giggle.

Sherlock takes advantage of the Lincoln’s surprise and darts forward. “I mean, look at this,” he says, peering over the clipboard and gesturing wildly. “You don’t even have pictures. Security’s appalling. Why do you even bother?” The Lincoln just stares, and Sherlock heaves a huge put-upon sigh. “Fine, whatever. It’s John English and my plus one, and next year we’ll expect a better show than this.”

Without waiting for a response, Sherlock sweeps past, tugging John along. Looking back over his shoulder, John sees the Lincoln check a name off. “How did you—?”

Safely out of range of the Lincoln’s hearing, Sherlock grins, lopsided and a little manic. “Just picked one right off the list. By the time the real John English actually shows up, that guard will be too embarrassed to admit he messed up letting us in, and he probably won’t say anything to anyone else about it.”

“You could not have possibly known that was going to work,” John laughs, resisting the urge to step in and press a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. “Come on, let’s find our historical psychopath and get this sorted.”

“In a hurry, John?”

“I’ve got some important business waiting for me at home tonight, I think,” he says, giving Sherlock a sidelong glance. Sherlock holds his gaze for a moment and smiles as he looks away.

“Mm. Let’s make this quick then, shall we?”

The entry hall—Georgian with pale yellow walls turned gold by low lights and flickering candles—is filled with quite a different sort of crowd than Stamford’s, all tittering laughter and clinking champagne glasses. The room swells with Elizabethan collars and Regency tailcoats, satin and velvet, dazzling jeweled necklaces and bracelets and hairpieces with a particular sense of age and authenticity that speaks of old money and inheritance. Sherlock fits right in, tilting his head up just a tiny bit as if the sight of it all prods at something half-forgotten in his genes.

“Fuck,” John says softly, taking it all in. Sherlock looks down at him with a lifted eyebrow. “I’m _still_ the only person from the future.”

Sherlock tips his head back and laughs, and this time, John can’t resist the urge to kiss him at all.

*

They follow the crowd up the narrow staircase and into the auditorium, plush with gilded accents and crushed red velvet upholstery and even more candlelight. People line the aisles and sweep up the rows toward the front of the room, where temporary set of stairs vaults over the orchestra pit and leads onto the stage, where there’s a bar and a string quartet for the crowd to gather around. Sherlock looks around and sees all of this, but at the same time, doesn’t manage to _see_ anything at all.

It’s impossible to focus like this.

Next to him, John is entirely out of place but entirely confident. Sherlock knows there are more insecurities in John Watson than anyone else could see in this moment, and Sherlock _loves him_ , fierce and overwhelmed with it, loves his courage and his fear and his strength for pressing forward despite the things that would hold him back.

Sherlock loves him and John presses his shoulder to Sherlock’s and Sherlock thinks maybe he’s allowed, maybe even he’s loved back, and it’s impossible, impossible, impossible to focus on the case when there’s so much happening in the inch or two of space between them.

“Anything?” John mutters as they work their way up the aisles toward the stage.

“Not so much as a gold braid,” Sherlock answers, frowning. “He’s got to be here, though. There’s no other stage for a move like this.”

“Literally, in fact. Let’s get up there and have a drink, see if we can blend in for a while. Well, you can blend, anyway. I’ll just. Stand out.”

Sherlock can’t help the smile that curls around the corner of his mouth. “You always do.”

John looks over and smiles back, catching his gaze and not letting go. The sparks should be visible in the air between them, Sherlock thinks, like a fire catching. Their shoulders brush again; the electricity threatens to consume them alive.

Eventually—Sherlock isn’t even really sure how—they do make their way up to the stage. John gets them both a flute of champagne from the bar and they wander toward the back, skirting the curtains that separate the public spaces from backstage. Old pieces of furniture from old sets have been arranged along the edges of the space, drawing people into sitting and gathering and generally leaving the middle of the stage open for dancing. The main stage lights are turned off, probably too hot and too bright, but the main chandelier over the auditorium is lit and there are red and purple accent lights to supplement the enormous candelabras arranged across the stage.

It’s extravagant, elegant, scripted to perfection: the perfect setting for a gothic horror or a revolutionary uprising, and Sherlock still hasn’t decided which seems more likely. Perhaps both, and neither: a revolution without a cause: a nightmarish call to arms for no more than the sheer bloody wonder of destruction.

Together, John and Sherlock ease their way around the stage, trying to scope out all the faces without drawing attention to themselves, wondering to each other whether the Napoleon might have changed costumes. John doesn’t hesitate to graze his fingers over the back of Sherlock’s hand, or to move in too close in order to whisper, breath ghosting over the shell of Sherlock’s ear, and Sherlock leans into each touch.

Which is probably why he’s distracted when they reach the far-right corner of the stage, which is definitely why Sherlock ends up getting quite the shock when he looks up again.

Mycroft.

Lounging back on some kind of chaise holding a cigar, wearing a three-piece suit with a pocket watch chain dangling across his torso and, most alarmingly, a closely trimmed ginger beard, but still undeniably Mycroft. He meets Sherlock’s eye, grimaces, and then makes a little motion with his fingers that sends the three or four people gathered around him scurrying.

Horrifying, honestly. Scariest thing about this Halloween yet.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, and it would sound pleasant if Sherlock didn’t know him so well, “John. To what do we owe the pleasure this evening?”

“Bit of a cop-out to just wear a regular suit, isn’t it?” John asks, frowning.

“I am the super-ego,” Mycroft explains grandly, and Sherlock can’t help it; he makes a retching sound halfway through a laugh and has to turn away to regain his composure.

John snorts. “Well, can’t say that I’d agree, but to each his own,” he says, giving Mycroft a sceptical look up and down. Sherlock can’t stop giggling.

“Giving new meaning to the phrase _Freudian slip_ , don’t you think?” he says, once he catches his breath. Mycroft glares. “Anyway,” Sherlock continues, before Mycroft can interrupt, “You’re being targeted by a serial killer, any ideas why?”

“Wait—him?” John looks over, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Mycroft? Why him?”

“Yes, him. It’s the Battle of Waterloo, after all, and Mycroft here has apparently done us the favour of wrapping the British and Austrian counterparts all into one neat target, which means whoever the Napoleon is, he’s probably close enough to Mycroft to know he was coming as Freud tonight. Mycroft, thoughts?”

Mycroft tilts his head as he thinks. “Austria wasn’t technically at Waterloo,” he says. “They were still crossing the borders with Russia.”

“It’s symbolic, don’t get too caught up in it.”

“Hmm.” Mycroft doesn’t seem terribly impressed. “There are several players in the works, as usual, of course, but security here is impeccable. I’m not overly concerned.”

“If security’s impeccable,” John points out, “How’d we get in?”

“I hardly hold my brother to the same standards as everyone else. My personal security is just backstage, monitoring the situation. They’ll know if there’s anyone out of place here.”

John purses his lips, unconvinced, then gives a decisive nod. “Right. Okay, well, I’m going to look for them then, Sherlock, if you’d like to fill him in?”

He hesitates, though, looking up at Sherlock like maybe he wants to lean in for a kiss before they separate but isn’t sure whether he ought to in front of Mycroft, or maybe isn’t sure whether he _wants_ to. Sherlock decides to take the risk and dips in, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of John’s mouth, and when he pulls back he knows it was the right decision by the way John is grinning, and he can’t help but grin back and watch for a moment or two as John walks away; those denims, after all, and that belt and holster, hips and thighs.

“A _hem_ ,” Mycroft coughs, sounding both horrified and annoying.

Sherlock clears his throat to cut off any rising questions. “Anyway. Who has your office been monitoring? Anyone by the name of Jim, James, any variation on that? Anybody who’s been waiting for a good opportunity to strike back?”

Mycroft rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Sherlock, don’t be so dramatic.”

Then there’s a crash backstage at the same time the doors to the auditorium slam close, and throughout the theatre, there’s an enormous sound of an organ, just one great smash of minor chords, the sound thick and unrelenting. Overhead, the lights cut out, leaving everyone in the ghastly shadows of too few candles in too big a space.

Mycroft stands, his shoulders tense, and around them, everyone goes quiet, a low thrum of panic rippling through the crowd.

“I hate saving your life,” Sherlock tells Mycroft conversationally. “Goes against everything I believe in.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft sighs, “Do shut up.”

*

John tries to keep his focus, making his way steadily through the dark. Security should already be stepping out onto the stage, but he doesn’t see them and it’ll only take a second to confirm what John already knows: they’re gone, either dead or unconscious or captured or just plain turned traitor.

“Hello?” he whispers into the black between the curtains. And again, a little louder, “Hello? Security?”

There’s no response. Normally, he would venture further into the darkness, just to be sure, but he left Sherlock standing out in the open with Mycroft and the Napoleon had already gotten too close to him for comfort once.

Wrinkling his nose, John turns back, following the flickering shine of candlelight in Sherlock’s sleek curls. Around him, the crowd shifts uneasily, though there are a few boisterous voices that seem to think it’s all a prank being played by the theatre. John knows better, though—he can see the grim looks on Sherlock’s and Mycroft’s faces.

Somewhere in the rafters, a loudspeaker crackles to life.

“Happy Halloween,” a voice sing-songs throughout the auditorium. “Hope everyone is having a simply _spine-chilling_ evening.”

John reaches Sherlock’s elbow, giving a brief touch to the small of his back to let him know he’s here. Sherlock doesn’t look over at him, but he does lean back the tiniest bit, acknowledging and seeking at once. “Is it him?” John whispers. Sherlock nods, his eyes just this side of too wide.

“You know, I don’t normally go in for these big shows,” the voice continues, creepier for all its playfulness, “But I did always want to come to Halloween at the Old Vic, just wanted to be a part of the tradition, really. See and be seen, all that jazz. Now,” the voice turns somewhat more serious, “I hate to sully up a good party with business, but! Needs must.”

A spotlight slams on, shining its circle into the middle box of the second-floor mezzanine. There’s a brief pause, then a figure wearing a bicorn hat steps into the light, arms outstretched. Next to John, Sherlock stiffens.

The Napoleon raises a microphone and speaks into it, too low and too close. “Where is Mycroft Holmes?”

Mycroft doesn’t look back at Sherlock, but he does hesitate, and in an instant John can feel some unspoken communication passing between them: the certain shift of Sherlock’s weight on his feet, a minute shake of Mycroft’s arm. When Mycroft steps forward, Sherlock presses his shoulder into John’s. John presses back.

The crowd parts to let Mycroft slip through, a Red Sea of gowns and glitter and whispering undercurrents.  “I am Mycroft Holmes,” he says, projecting his voice to address the Napoleon, utterly calm. “Though I sincerely doubt that you are the French.”

The Napoleon snickers, and this time he lets the full lilt of his Irish accent shine through. “Oh, very good. No, I’m not _actually_ Napoleon,” at this, he giggles, “But I can certainly sympathise with a good cause.”

 _Keep his attention, Mycroft,_ John thinks, craning his neck to look over the ceiling, into the rafters above the stage. Someone else must be operating the lights, of course, and another would have had to be in charge of closing the auditorium doors, which John suspects are now locked. _How many of you are there?_

“One at the lights and one at the doors,” Sherlock whispers. He looks as though he’s trying to look anywhere but at Mycroft. “But where is the soldier who will take the shot?”

“We’re corralled,” John mutters back. “It might not be a shot. It could be any number of things as long as we’re all here like sitting ducks.”

“Could be cannon fire,” Sherlock agrees mildly, and John knows it’s meant to be a tease but he also know that Sherlock only jokes about the cases when the tension ratchets up too high. He gently places his hand over the small of Sherlock’s back, not rubbing or anything, just holding it there, and Sherlock lets out a breath that makes John feel suddenly like he’s holding Sherlock together.

At the front of the stage, Mycroft is obviously attempting to lead the conversation on, asking whether the Napoleon represents anybody. Unbelievably, their impromptu audience of partygoers still doesn’t seem to have caught on that the performance isn’t actually supposed to be part of the show, aside from a few confused murmurs.

“He’ll be all right,” John says. “But we need to get off this stage and sort this out right now, okay? Move to your left, keep your face forward, slowly.”

“Oh, don’t bother, I’m not with any group,” the Napoleon is saying. Sherlock moves carefully across the stage, toward the curtains, trying to be subtle enough that no one really notices. “I’m not the IRA, Mr Holmes. I’m not with any sort of resistance. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just for some silly political movement, don’t you think?”

“Who are you, then?”

“Jim Moriarty,” the Napoleon answers, taking his hat by one corner and sweeping it dramatically over his head. “ _Hi-i_.”

The sweep of the hat seems to be a cue of some kind, because the Napoleon—Moriarty—is no longer watching Mycroft on the stage, but rather up toward the ceiling, where John can just barely make out the catwalks in the dark.

He sees it, but just a moment too late.

A huge bucket has been hoisted up, waiting precariously in the rafters. A fifty-five gallon drum at least, maybe more, maybe even twice that—and John watches, breathless, as it teeters, pulled by something John can’t see, and then overturns, cascading thick, dark liquid down in a grotesque waterfall, somehow landing exactly on target and enveloping Mycroft in blood.

Sherlock takes two full steps forward, mouth opening in a silent gasp, before he remembers himself.

Screaming and yelling erupts across the stage in waves as the crowd snaps out of whatever reverie they’ve been hesitating in. Everyone now seems to understand that it’s not a game—this isn’t a performance, and it’s possible that their very lives are on the line. Two women pass out; there’s a sound of retching from somewhere near the bar.

At the front of the stage, Mycroft stands stock-still for a moment, then he turns to look at everyone behind him, now giving him a much wider berth. He meets Sherlock’s eyes for a split second but doesn’t linger, like he doesn’t want to give them away, and then looks down at his hands with bored disdain.

He raises one hand in front of his eyes, then sticks the tip of one finger into his mouth. Another person vomits somewhere in the crowd.

“Corn syrup and coffee grounds,” Mycroft announces. “Is this meant to frighten me, Mr Moriarty?”

“No,” Moriarty snorts. “It’s just supposed to make you look gross.”

Now is their moment, with everyone distracted. “Come on, Sherlock,” John whispers, plucking at his sleeve. “Let’s go.” And, Sherlock’s eyes riveted at the sight of his brother drenched in fake blood, they sink back into the shadows and behind the curtains, where the air is cooler and Sherlock seems to suddenly remember to breathe.

*

They skirt through the curtains, slipping further away from the stage and deeper into the shadows. Gold stantions with red velvet ropes are set up to keep the backstage off-limits, which they slip past easily. “Did you ever find the security detail?” Sherlock asks, too stiffly.

John wants to wrap him up into his arms for a second and reassure him, but there’s barely any time and anyway he thinks Sherlock would probably just scoff and shake him off. He settles instead for just putting a hand on his arm. “No, but they’ll be close by, they would have wanted a good view of the stage. Careful, though—whoever dumped that bucket probably will be around here somewhere yet.” He hesitates, then adds, “He’ll be all right, you know.”

In the dark, Sherlock looks more pale than usual, more strained above the high collar of his ruffled cravat. He licks his lips and nods once, shortly. “I know.”

John nods back and doesn’t press it any further. Instead they set off together, looking for bodies in the thick velvet drapes. It doesn’t take them long to find the first security man, obvious in his black suit and black tie and elaborate earpiece, wrapped up in the ends of one of the curtains.

John quickly checks his pulse—still strong, just unconscious, no time to provide any other aid—and then relieves him of the gun holstered under his shoulder, and yes, it’s loaded.

Sherlock nods; John turns the safety off.

Together they make their way further backstage, out of the curtains and into the stale smell of old backdrops and plywood props, racks of costumes reaching out at them as though to snag their sleeves. They’re too far back to make out any of the conversation still happening on stage, but every once and a while the ringing sound of the Napoleon—of Jim Moriarty cackling into the microphone filters back to them. Sherlock stays tense, but focused, and John follows him, wary and quiet.

Eventually they run into the stage settings for the Old Vic’s current run of _Candide_ —tall, fake trees draped with fake Spanish moss to represent a Brazilian jungle, a fountain on wheels and thin storefronts to make up Lisbon’s town square. Shadows move over the darkness, and Sherlock lays a hand on John’s forearm to still him.

“Shh,” he warns, one finger laid against his lips. He waves at the far end of a shopfront with a large, five-pointed star on the front door, gesturing John toward it; from behind the plywood front, John hears something that might be a shoe scuffling on the floor. He makes his way over slowly, raising the gun.

Sherlock waits until John is in place, ready to pop around the edge of façade. Then he rams his whole body into the door, swinging it open into whoever might be waiting behind it.

John steps onto the other side of the shopfront at the same time and he sees Sherlock take the man there by surprise, landing a quick punch and sending him to the ground. John rushes forward; the man slams his fist behind Sherlock’s knee and brings him down too, rolling over to punch back at him. John hears Sherlock grunt—at least one hit must have struck true—and his heart is in his throat at the sound and he doesn’t hesitate to pull the gun back and lay all his strength behind it as he swings it into the man’s head.

The man topples, unconscious.

“All right?” John says, reaching out to pull Sherlock up. Sherlock nods, but there’s a dark smudge of blood already forming in his eyebrow. “Hey, Jesus, are you okay? Let me see.”

It’s too dark to really see anything but Sherlock leans in anyway and lets John prod the area a bit. The adrenalin settles hard in John’s stomach at the sight of it, making him queasy; the game they play cuts too close to the edge sometime, and for once John has too much to lose if they fall. “I’m fine,” Sherlock says, a little shakily, “It’s not a big deal. He just got lucky.”

“No other big hits to your skull? Did you hit your head when you went down?”

“No.” He catches John’s wrists in his hands. “John. I’m fine. We have to keep moving.”

John meets his eyes, translucent in the low light, and he can’t help himself—he slides one hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck and pulls him in, kissing him hard, the smell of copper in his nose and the breath of relief warm against his cheek. “Be _careful_ ,” he huffs against Sherlock’s lips, eyes closed. “We’ve got to get through this in one piece, please.”

“Trust me, I’m _extremely_ motivated to get through this in one piece,” Sherlock assures him, pressing another kiss to his mouth, and God, to be able to do this, to have this reciprocated, to lean into Sherlock and feel Sherlock lean into him and to feel their hearts beating into one another, understanding that split second fear of seeing Sherlock fall. To tell him what he’s feeling with hands and mouth—it’s brilliant and razor-sharp and too close and not close enough. “Are you ready?”

Another moment of steadying himself and John is able to pull away. He nods down at the man on the floor. “Don’t suppose you have any zip ties in that fancy coat of yours, do you?”

“No,” Sherlock says. “That would be my _other_ frock coat.”

John tries to glare but only ends up laughing. “Fine, all right. Give me your cravat, then.”

*

It’s quick work to tie up Moriarty’s man, and John and Sherlock leave him still unconscious—“Might’ve hit him too hard, actually,” John says regretfully, “but you,” and he doesn’t finish his sentence, which makes Sherlock’s ribs feel like they’re expanding—and make their way through the rest of the backstage areas, checking for downed security guards or more of Moriarty's people, though they don’t find anyone, and eventually they end up back in the corridors leading to the front of the house.

“There’ll be at least one more man here,” Sherlock reminds John, as John fusses over the cut in his eyebrow now that they’re back out in the light. It’s not serious, of course, but Sherlock lets him, taking the comfort from John's steady hands and steadier gaze. “Maybe two. And we’ll probably need to try to unlock the auditorium doors as well.”

The foyer is eerily deserted but for the body laid out on the floor: the Lincoln that had been manning the front door. Unfortunately, he had not been as lucky as his backstage counterpart, and his face and neck have been slashed practically to ribbons by some kind of knife or razor-blade—too fine to be an ax or machete or sword, John opines, stoic and professional as he reaches down to feel for a pulse. After a moment, he only shakes his head, and wipes his bloodied fingers off on the carpeting before he stands.

“There must’ve been more than two security guards here,” John says, his posture turning rigid as his military training surpasses the habits of his civilian life in the face of a death. “And there were staff behind the bar there, all through here, actually. Where do you think they all went?”

“The staff,” Sherlock repeats, realising. “In Kensington—the victim’s staff had all disappeared. And now they have here, too. John, this is. This Moriarty. He’s much bigger than we thought, I think. Much bigger than even Mycroft thought.”

John nods grimly. “He’s got a much bigger army than we gave him credit for.”

“We’ve got to cut it off at the head, then,” Sherlock declares. “Come on.”

Sherlock leads the way back up the staircase they’d climbed barely half-hour ago, and when they reach the first floor he turns a corner runs nearly headlong into another of Moriarty’s henchman, pretty easily identifiable by the ugly sneer splattered with blood. On his left hand, he's wearing a glove with long, silver knives attached to the back, sprouting away from his knuckles like deadly fingers. Sherlock dodges the first swipe of the knives, giving John an opening to dart forward and slam the butt of the gun into his head. The man goes down, but not before slashing open the front of John’s shirt.

“You could’ve just shot him,” Sherlock points out breathlessly.

“This glove thing,” John says, ignoring him to poke at his own chest, “This is a horror movie too. _Nightmare on Elm Street._ Has this guy got a fetish or what?”

“Creepy fetish.” Sherlock brushes John’s hands aside to look through his shredded shirt. His skin underneath is pale and taut, smooth but for a smattering of chest hair. He’s warm, hot even, maybe a little sweaty. Sherlock swallows hard. “Scraped up,” he reports, “But not really bleeding. He barely got you.”

“Good.” John leans forward and presses a quick kiss to Sherlock’s mouth; Sherlock’s mouth goes dry with the casualness of it. Twice now, an injury has resulted in a kiss—it’s practically a habit. He’s going to form an expectation if John isn’t careful. God, the mere idea of it, of kissing John as _habit,_ of kissing John so easily and often that he might be _absent-minded_ in the ritual of it, makes him dizzy.

“Here, this is handy,” John says, pulling Sherlock’s attention back to him where he’s crouched by the man on the floor. He’s pulled the knife-laden glove off the man’s hand. He stands and passes Sherlock a keyring, gesturing down the hall at the auditorium doors, where a silver chain has been wrapped around the bars and locked into place with a padlock. Quickly, and as quietly as he can manage, Sherlock unravels the lock and chain and passes everything to John so John can use it to chain Moriarty’s man to a railing.

Sherlock peeks through the doors, taking in their position. They’re on the left-hand side of the theatre, having run into the henchman before they could get any closer to the centre. It's difficult to really see anything, but he can hear Mycroft’s voice coming from the stage.

“Mycroft’s still got him talking then,” John murmurs, joining him at the crack in the doors.

“Unbelievable,” Sherlock says. “Who wants to talk to Mycroft that long?”

He can barely make out Mycroft’s figure on the darkened stage, still red-soaked and disgusting with fake blood. “Why don’t you let all these people go,” he’s saying, complete with his usual patronising tone, “and it will be just you and me, and then we can get properly down to business.”

“What?” Moriarty says incredulously. “And deprive you of an audience to die in front of? Where’s the performance in that?”

Suddenly, before Sherlock can stop him, John pushes the door open a crack further and slips into the auditorium, trying to stay hidden behind a pillar as he makes his way up one of the rows. “John,” Sherlock hisses, following him, easing the doors closed behind him so they don’t creak. “What are you _doing_?”

John throws a furious look at him, finger pressed to his lips to shush him, then looks back into the auditorium and up. Sherlock follows his line of sight to the third mezzanine, where he can suddenly make out a black figure hunched in the shadows behind the black line of a rifle barrel. “I could take the shot from here,” John whispers, his gaze unwavering, and Sherlock thinks that this is what John must have looked like as an active duty soldier: hard, a little frightening, a little unfamiliar. “Kill them, or harm them?”

Sherlock's brain trips over the question for a moment before it manages to orient itself to the severity of the situation: three people have already died, and Mycroft has been painted in the red of the next target. He clears his throat and tries to sound steady. “You’ve got to incapacitate them enough so that they won’t be able to take the shot. They can’t have a second chance to recover.”

John creeps around the pillar, obviously calculating angles and trajectories through the darkened auditorium, still lit only by the gigantic candelabras on stage. “There’s only one shot, then.”

“Okay.” Sherlock exhales heavily through his mouth and looks toward Mycroft, bloodied on the stage. “Take it.”

The noise of the gun is deafening.

*

At first, Sherlock isn’t sure where to look. Everyone on stage is screaming, panicked, finally broken out of whatever spell had kept them frozen in place. They disperse like so many surprised chickens, darting behind curtains and tumbling into the seats to hide between the rows. Mycroft drops to a crouch, steadying himself with one hand and one knee on the floor as he scans the auditorium for the source of the shot.

If the shot had been meant for him, he would’ve been dead, but God, thank God—the only shot that was fired was John’s.

“Come on,” John says, his voice muddled in Sherlock’s ear, shoving him back toward the door. “Come on, we’ve got to go.” 

“Was it a kill shot?” Sherlock asks. His voice doesn’t sound right either.

“Shoulder. If someone doesn’t stop the bleeding in the next few minutes, it will be.” He shoves Sherlock again. “We’ve got to _move_ , Sherlock, before any of his other men come looking for who fired, we don’t know who else might be here.”

From above, Moriarty lets out a shriek, loud and shrill into the microphone. “ _Rude!_ ” he squeals. “And she had my only gun. Tsk, tsk. Though I suppose that is the way of little brothers, wouldn’t you say, Mycroft? Always meddling. We’ll have to reconvene this little meeting, you know, but do take to mind what I said. You can take tonight as a lesson in how powerful I am—don’t underestimate me next time, Mr Holmes.”

And he leans over the balcony and holds out the microphone. Sherlock has only a split second to slap his hands over John’s ears, pressing hard, before Moriarty drops it, making his escape to a terrifying, echoing crash.

*

“You idiot,” John yells, furious, pushing Sherlock out of the auditorium. He looks dazed, and he probably is, considering the enormity of the noise still ringing even in John’s ears. Once they burst back into the light, John grabs Sherlock’s open collar to drag him down, checking his ears for blood. In the hall above them, John can hear footsteps; they can't afford to let Moriarty get away. “You idiot, you’re unbelievable—go— _go_!”

He tugs on Sherlock’s arm, points, shouts, and Sherlock seems to snap back into himself and lunges forward, sprinting for the stairs. They hit the third level, then a fourth, barely empty. No more scowling henchmen stop them, no one seems to be following them, and John thinks that it should have been impossible for Moriarty to take over the whole of the Old Vic with only three people and an absent staff, but he seems to have done it. He hopes Mycroft is able to get everyone out of the auditorium and out of the building before they all find out for sure.

At the far end of the fourth floor, a rickety staircase dangles out of a trapdoor in the ceiling, still swaying with the movement of someone having just gone up; Sherlock doesn't hesitate before darting for it, and neither does John behind him. The attic itself is dusty and dark, nearly impossible to navigate when Moriarty or some hired gun could be hiding in any shadow, behind any piece of old furniture or forgotten box of discarded props and costumes.  

Across the attic, though, John can hear the echo of a fading footstep, and he holds his gun at the ready and follows Sherlock after it. They skirt dozens of abandoned racks and boxes, following the curve of the enormous fixtures of the auditorium’s chandelier, racing into the deepening dark until they reach an end and a door, swinging open in the wind: the rooftop. 

Sherlock pauses with his hand on the handle, looking back at John as if asking his permission. _There’s nowhere he can go_ , John understands. _We don’t have to._

He nods anyway, and Sherlock gives one great smacking kiss to John’s mouth that leaves John smiling in Sherlock’s wake as he pushes through.  _We don’t have to, but we can, and we will. We'll see it through to the end._

At the far side of the roof, Moriarty stands looking out over London, silhouetted against the night. The gold braid of his epaulettes glitter in the city's endless lights; he looks much smaller without bicorn hat. Almost laughably small, John thinks. He doesn’t turn as he hears John and Sherlock approach.

“Nowhere to go from here, Moriarty,” Sherlock calls out to him. “Time to come back now and stand for your crimes.”

When Moriarty turns, he has a horrible smile on his face, lips curled back almost into a growl. It’s the sort of disconcerting look men get when they’re prepared to play their very last card in the absolute certainty that it will win—and John has seen it win in combat, many times. Too many times to be comfortable now.

“Sherlock!” Moriarty exclaims. “So glad you could come out to play after all. Did you like my little pop culture tricks tonight?”

“Bit boring, don’t you think?” Sherlock returns. “I don’t really do the pop culture thing, honestly. I suppose it was your people that were here tonight that did the dirty work for you?”

Moriarty dips his head, like he’s excited Sherlock had figured it out and not at all afraid to be cornered. The unease in John's belly deepens and he tightens his grip on his gun, risking a look over his shoulder at the door to the roof: still closed behind them. “Clever, clever,” Moriarty says. “One for each of them, yes. _Halloween_ , of course, that was a fun one to set up, and _Friday the 13 th_, which was admittedly a bit gorier than my usual tastes.” His smile broadens. “And Mycroft—did you catch was his reference was?”

“I don’t watch slasher movies. Not really my style.”

Moriarty throws his hands up in exaggerated exasperation. “ _Carrie_! _Carrie_ , of course. Locked auditorium? Bucket of overturned blood? Granted, I couldn’t get the real thing on such short notice, but the effect was still good, don’t you think? Mycroft looks good in death.”

John glances at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye, but Sherlock doesn’t so much as twitch. “And then your sniper was going to shoot him.”

“Well, yes,” Moriarty laughs. “That was rather the point.”

“And now it's over,” Sherlock returns. “You’ve got nowhere to go. You’re going to be arrested, tried for the murders of at least three people, and locked away forever.”

Moriarty sobers for a second, but then the grin comes creeping back across his face. “Oh," he says, drawing a distorted mimicry of surprise over his expression as he slides his hands deep into his pockets. They’re much deeper than John would have expected, actually, and the gentle bump that Moriarty’s hands make underneath the fabric immediately catches John’s attention: they’re not pronounced enough, they’re not as big as they ought to be. The pockets are padded, then. Hiding something. “Am I really, though?”

That’s about enough of that, John thinks. Anything could come out of those pockets: a small pistol, or a cyanide capsule, or even a throwing knife, or whatever new reference to whatever remaining slasher films Moriarty might have thought of, and John has simply had enough. He steps in close to Sherlock, gun still aimed, and asks, deliberate and steady, “Kill him, or hurt him?”

If the question is a surprise to Sherlock, he doesn’t show it. “Britain didn’t kill Napoleon,” he answers after a moment’s consideration. “Just exiled him.”

“And look what a pain in the arse that turned out to be,” John responds, and pulls the trigger.

The shot hits Moriarty in the upper shoulder, right where John aimed on the sniper inside. It’s a dangerous shot, but not inherently fatal, not if he gets treatment quickly enough. When he hits the ground, John thinks, he can probably stabilise Moriarty long enough for paramedics to arrive.

But Moriarty doesn’t fall to the the ground. Instead, he staggers, wheeling backward with a look of genuine surprise on his face. He hits the edge of the roof and grabs at the edge for balance. “No!” Sherlock shouts, unexpectedly, and then the edge falls away, falls back off the top of the building into thin air, and Moriarty goes five stories down with it.

For a moment, there is just the sound of the wind in their ears.

“Ah,” John says after a moment. “Well. I did not actually mean for that to happen.”

“Parts of the façade had to be reconstructed during the remodel of the Old Vic in ’85,” Sherlock says, sounding a bit stunned. “It wasn’t much more than styrofoam plastered over to look like stone.”

Carefully, they make their way over to the edge of the roof and peer down. Moriarty is lying face-down on the pavement below, painted blue and red in the flashing lights from the police cars lining the street. A grey-haired figure stands next to the body, hands on his hips, obviously exasperated.

“This better not be a hostage,” Lestrade shouts up at them, scowling.

“It’s your killer, Lestrade,” Sherlock shouts back, perhaps hysterical. “I did try to deliver him to you quickly.”

Lestrade looks back at Moriarty’s body with disgust on his face. “Next time, feel free to skip the express route,” he yells.

John can’t help it: the threat is over and the relief is huge, and Sherlock is standing next to him with one hand on the back of his shoulder and there’s still so much they need to talk about, and he probably just accidentally killed a serial killer. In shock with the rush of everything flooding through him and half-hysterical himself, there’s only one thing he can think to do.

He tips his head back and laughs.

*

Lestrade glares at them as they sit in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in bright orange blankets. There’s undoubtedly a mountain of paperwork waiting for him tonight. For the next few days, actually. It’s only _mostly_ their fault.

Moriarty did not survive his fall from the roof.

His supporters did survive their injuries, though: paramedics were able to resuscitate the sniper, who has since been identified as an internationally wanted assassin. The other two suffered no more than a concussion apiece.

The question of the disappearing staff, however, will likely be giving Lestrade fits for weeks; Sherlock resigns himself to helping the Yard sort through that mystery later. After all, no one wants a new figurehead to rise up to take Moriarty’s place.

Not tonight, though. Sherlock’s got more important things to worry about tonight.

John presses a tiny butterfly bandage into place over the cut in Sherlock’s eyebrow, his hands practiced and comforting on Sherlock’s skin. “You’ve got to make sure they clean the scratches on your chest,” Sherlock reminds him, letting his eyes slide closed.

“Yes, dear. I already went over them with a wipe, they’ll be fine. He barely got me. There, you’re done.” John leans in to kiss him, lingers in it, warm and soft and somehow, Sherlock knows, relieved and thankful and determined to keep him close.

Sherlock knows how he feels. He settles into the kiss, touching his tongue to John’s bottom lip and reveling in the noise John makes into his mouth, tightening his grip on John’s hips.

“A- _hem_.”

“Is that going to be a thing with you?” John says, pulling back sharply.

Mycroft sniffs, disapproving. He looks impeccable, of course—new suit, no trace of blood or coffee grounds anywhere on him, freshly clean-shaven. It’s impossibly impressive and Sherlock huffs in carefully curated disdain. “Your security detail needs work.”

“Mm,” Mycroft answers, which is his way of agreeing without having to say he’s agreeing. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in joining it, John?”

John barks a laugh. “No, thanks. Not a chance. I’ve already picked my Holmes and one of you is quite enough.”

Now _that_ , Sherlock thinks, that is definitely something he wants to know more about, what John thinks and what John wants and whether John wants anything like what Sherlock wants, and he’d like to do it anywhere besides the back of an ambulance with Mycroft looking over them.

Sherlock hops down and offers John his hand. “Let’s go home, John.”

John smiles up at him, shining with brilliance and undeniable happiness, and then he puts his hand in Sherlock’s, and they go home.

*


	4. a kissing book

_I used to think that love was just a fairy tale_   
_Until that first hello, until that first smile_   
_but if I had to do it all again I wouldn’t change a thing_   
_‘Cause this love is everlasting_

_Suddenly – life has new meaning to me_   
_There’s beauty up above and things we never take notice of_   
_You wake up and suddenly, you’re in love._

_\- Billy Ocean, “Suddenly”_

*

They’re barely through the door before Sherlock turns and kisses John soundly, eager and maybe a little bit nervous, as though he doesn’t quite believe that he’ll still be allowed in the sanctity of these walls: their home, their life, something more significant than just a dirty alleyway and a smoky dancefloor and an adrenalin-fueled victory. 

John hums against him, pulling him closer—his nose is cold against John’s—and pushing him back at the same time, back against the wall at the bottom of the stairs where he can hold Sherlock properly in place and kiss him until he believes John is here and John is always going to be.

It started here, at the bottom of the stairs, laughing, and John can’t help himself: he giggles against Sherlock’s lips until he can’t keep kissing him. “I thought about this, right here,” he says, kissing Sherlock’s cheek, the corner of his jaw. “About you.”

The skin of Sherlock’s neck is warm; it smells like sweat and smoke and vetiver. “I thought about you, too,” he admits.

“You said you were married to your work.”

Sherlock chuckles. The sound, low and velvety, spins liquid gold down John’s spine and settles somewhere between his hips. “And then,” Sherlock says, voice low and deliberate, “I invited you into it.”

John groans and kisses him again, harder this time, the barest hint of teeth and Sherlock’s tongue hesitant against his lips. Kisses him breathless. Kisses him until Sherlock’s hips are canting closer to John’s, until Sherlock’s hands are sliding up under John’s torn shirt, until John finds the buttons of Sherlock’s waistcoat under his fumbling fingers.

Until the front door opens.

John startles back and Mrs Hudson spills through in a cloud of floaty lilac fabric, drawing herself to a sudden stop in the doorway as she takes in the scene at the bottom of the stairs: Sherlock, leaning hard against the wall, John a mere step or two away, the both of them breathless. Half of Sherlock’s waistcoat is undone from the bottom up.

“Oh,” she says, straightening her tiara in her hair and not bothering to hide her glee, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, boys.”

John starts to say, _not at all,_ but it’s such a blatant lie he can’t bring himself to carry through with it. Instead he looks to Sherlock for guidance, but Sherlock just gives a little shake of his head and they both end up shrugging sheepishly at her.

“I trust you two had a good night,” she continues, tilting the end up into a question when they don’t offer any details.

“I’m very sure we did,” Sherlock says, impressively impassive for someone who looks like they were just in the middle of being thoroughly debauched. He straightens off the wall and adjusts his lapels, as though that will help make him look more put-together; John has to stifle an outright laugh. “And I’m sure you did as well.”

Mrs Hudson giggles and seems to finally decide to let them alone. “I did,” she agrees, slipping past them off to her flat. “Haven’t been to a party like that since ’72!”

John watches her go, swishing the skirt of her purple dress around her calves, when he realises something he’s sure he wishes he didn’t. He squints, but the realisation doesn’t go away and he turns to whisper at Sherlock, “Was she wearing that same dress when—”

“No,” Sherlock cuts him off. “Don’t ask. For God’s sake, do not ask.” Then, louder: “Goodnight, Mrs Hudson.”

“Goodnight!” she singsongs back. “Do keep the noise down, though, will you? I’m properly knackered tonight.”

Oh, god. John can’t keep up the façade any longer; as soon as Mrs Hudson’s door clicks closed, he’s laughing, just bursting with it, pressing his beet-red face into Sherlock’s shoulder and trying to catch his breath again.

Sherlock’s laughing too, though not as hard. “Come on,” he manages, “Before she comes back,” and tugs John toward the stairs.

*

Sherlock should do something.

Shouldn’t he? He suddenly wishes he were wearing his coat and scarf just so he could fill the space and his hands with taking them off. Should he make tea? Is this a moment for tea? John likes to have tea when he’s discussing something he thinks is serious, like _honestly, what were you thinking, you almost died, you clot_ or _so about this thing in the bathtub._ Are they going to talk about things, or are they just going to settle onto the sofa and make out for a little while? Or for a few hours? Should he invite John down to his bedroom? Is that going too far? Is that crossing a boundary? What even are the boundaries?

How can he respect them and obliterate them at the same time?

In lieu of just dragging John back to the bottom of the stairs and picking up where they left off, since they seemed to have it sorted out down there, Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back and waits to see what John will do. 

Across the room, John rubs the back of his neck and looks over. The quiet between them draws out in the starlit sitting room, tense and weighted and still just a little bit unsure of how to fill the space. Finally, John takes a deep, steadying breath—the idea that John might need steadying as much as Sherlock does is heady and intoxicating—and offers Sherlock a small smile. “We never got to finish our dance, did we?”

Sherlock can’t stop himself from smiling back, a tight-lipped, shy thing as the suggestion settles in his chest. “We didn’t.”

John considers him a moment longer, then goes over to the desk and turns on the radio, adjusting the knobs to find a good station until Billy Ocean’s voice fills the space alongside a synthetic beat. He leaves the volume low and turns to Sherlock, holding out his hands; Sherlock steps into them.

It’s been a long night, and suddenly in the safety of John’s arms it all seems to crash together: the party, the dancing, the murder. Watching John from across a darkened back office in some strange pub, the distant noise of a celebration echoing in both their ears as they hurtle toward each other but not quite making contact. Kissing John on the Tube—an accident, after all this time, nothing more important or meaningful than a mistake—and then kissing him in the alley, in the moonlight, resolutely intentional, a half-formed confession of wanting _something_ but still too hurried by time and the case to say what.

The theatre. Mycroft, unexpected, drenched in blood. The Napoleon’s leer under the brim of a bicorn hat. John pressing their shoulders together—pressing their mouths together—pressing their hands together, like if he stops touching him, Sherlock will forget, or disappear, or change his mind.

Sherlock isn’t going to change his mind. He rests his temple against John’s as they sway, hoping the knowledge will transfer through so John can know it without hesitation. _I do love you. I have loved you. I will love you._

John holds him close and moves to the music and if he hears the thought, he doesn’t pull away. Sherlock can hear him breathing over the soft sound of the radio switching from one song to the next and he lets himself get lost in the rhythm of it.

He lets himself let the rest of the night—the rollercoaster of ups and downs, highs and lows, the disappointment and shame and regret and fear—go. He lets it all go. 

“What do you think,” John says eventually, quiet and warm in Sherlock’s ear, a brush of amusement in his tone. “Is the kissing better here, or in alleyways outside Waterloo?”

Sherlock huffs a laugh and pretends to consider it. “Well, the smell here is much improved,” he notes. “But then, there was a certain ambience in that alley.”

“You think?” He pulls back just far enough to meet Sherlock’s gaze. His eyes are crinkled at the corners. “A little gritty, a little risky. You like it a little on the edge, don’t you?”

“I like it,” Sherlock corrects, “with you.”

John smiles a little wider and says, much softer, “Yeah. I do too.”

He kisses Sherlock again, slower, with less urgency and more familiarity. Sherlock’s lips are already tingly and swollen with the unfamiliar onslaught, but he just kisses John deeper and doesn’t let him pull away.

Sherlock wants to say it: to confess, to bare himself, to be free of the burden of wondering whether John does or if John could or if John wants. He wants to let it all come rushing out until John has everything, every piece of him. He wants to take John to bed, and he wants John to know what it means, and he wants it to be as much about the softness of their fingers tangling together as it is about the press of their hips.

He thinks, he’s almost certain, John thinks the same way. The way John kisses him, the way John touches him, the way John doesn’t laugh about it. He thinks, but he doesn’t know.

“Salieri, though,” John whispers, interrupting Sherlock’s line of thought. “Who’s your Mozart?”

Sherlock flounders for a moment, surprised. “That’s, um. It’s a misconception, actually. Drama created for the film. They were friendly enough, you know, as these things go. And later in his life, Salieri taught poor students for free while charging wealthier ones. A musical Robin Hood, as it were.”

John gives him a look that says, _stop avoiding the question._ “Sherlock.”

“John.”

He leans in, brushing the words against Sherlock’s lips before John kisses him. “You’re second to no one.”

*

“Listen,” John says, “I have to say this, first. You should know.”

John looks up at him, his eyes just this side of too big and his smile fading into solemnity, and Sherlock hurtles through all the options and apologies and confessions John might be about to make. His heart is about to beat out of his chest and he’s gulping down air, John’s hand suddenly too gentle on the curve on his jaw, John’s voice suddenly sounding far away even though he’s still right here.

Sherlock swallows and tries to get a hold of himself and manages to say, “Okay.”

“I think,” John says, and he says this very closely, leaning in like he’s about to tell a secret, breath ghosting over the shell of Sherlock’s ear with a distinct sense of wonder, as though he can’t quite believe his own daring, “I think maybe I’m in love with you.”

The scrolling marquee of possibilities comes to a halt in Sherlock’s mind, settling on John’s words in bright, shining lights: _I’m in love with you._

The too-large feeling under Sherlock’s ribs bubbles up like gold champagne, effervescent and excited, and Sherlock tips himself in and John catches him around the waist and Sherlock kisses him and half-laughs, half-sobs into his mouth, and kisses him, and kisses him, and leans his forehead against his and says, “Oh, good. I think I’m maybe in love with you too.”

*

John’s mouth, rough sometimes and needy sometimes and other times more gentle, more hesitant than Sherlock thinks he can bear, the brush of a day’s worth of stubble against his chin—hands, moving—exploring—discovering—uncovering—yielding—heated silk and thin cotton and the press of a belt buckle into a hip—pressing back into the desk and the radio going out of tune, Whitney Houston lost in the static and John’s chest against his chest, John’s thigh between his thighs—the flare of uncertainty and desire and two pulses hammering against Sherlock’s ribs and John’s fingerprints on Sherlock’s belly and Sherlock is not accustomed to wanting something that could be had and he’s gasping, gasping and trying to say and—

*

“Sherlock, can I—can we—your room?”

John’s hands are practically shaking and he can’t remember the last time he was nervous to take somebody to bed but it’s Sherlock and he wants it to be _right_ , and Sherlock _loves him_ , maybe, maybe in the way John says _maybe_ and means _definitely,_ and John is aching to touch him and hold him and know him and show him all the things John can’t sort into words.

“Yes,” Sherlock manages, thank god, already slipping off the edge of the desk and maneuvering John toward the kitchen, all hot hands and unsteady knees.

He follows, trailing behind Sherlock with two fingers latched onto two of his. “I don’t want to make you—if this is too fast, just—”

Sherlock pulls John into his bedroom and kisses him quiet. “It’s not too fast. It’s perfect. Take off your shoes.” He sits on the edge of the bed to untie his own and then pauses, looking up warily. “Is it too fast for you?”

There’s something comforting in the concern on Sherlock’s face—John isn’t the only one who is trying to find his footing, who wants things to happen in just the right way. “It’s perfect,” John agrees. “Get your shoes off so I can kiss you again.”

Shoes, and then socks, and then John’s hands carefully slipping the darker overcoat from Sherlock’s shoulders, his head tilted up, his neck exposed, his hands around John’s hips, holding him close. The waistcoat follows, leaving Sherlock sitting on the edge of the bed with eyes closed, looking like some incorporeal haunting in the linen shirt. A ghost from whatever long-gone past, sat waiting here for John to arrive and deliver him back into life.

John isn’t going to deliver him from anything, he thinks. Sherlock doesn’t need to be saved. He just needs to be loved.

Sometimes, it really is that simple and that complex and that desperate and devastating and intolerably tender; sometimes, it really is just that small ember burning in someone’s heart, waiting to be fanned into flame, into knowing, into give and take; sometimes, it really is just that same soft need as reaching for a hand in the dark when there’s nothing to be afraid of but the emptiness of one’s own palm.

To be loved.

John can do that.

*

Sherlock’s long fingers unbuckling the strap from just above John’s knee, unhooking the holster from John’s belt. His palms spread huge over the back of John’s thighs. His mouth beautiful along the line of John’s trousers. His hair, fluffed but still pristine with Aqua Net as he emerges from the linen shirt, tossing it to the floor. His arse and hips, shimmying out of his breeches, stripping the hose off even as it clings to the shape of his calves.

John drinks him in, trying to memorise each individual inch as he’s uncovered, trying to remember what he moves like, tastes like, sounds like, trying to _notice_ everything.

Sherlock traces over the scratches on John’s chest, reverent, and John kisses each of his fingertips: a fantasy burning into a miracle.

*

Blue moonlight fills the room, the cracked window making the gauzy curtains float with the breeze, and Sherlock pulls John down over him, down onto the spread of cool white sheets, and John slows, slows, slows.

John is hot to the touch, shifting muscle and sweat-sticky skin as he stretches out along Sherlock’s side, his hands certain and his mouth soft on Sherlock’s neck, collarbones, chest. Each touch sings through Sherlock, hitting notes no one’s ever hit before, building melody and harmony where there’d previously only been whole rests and sharp staccato notes of acid and disdain. But John—John is different, the violently sweet passion of an electric violin, soaring notes amplified along Sherlock’s spine, pulsing into Sherlock’s chest and pooling in his groin.

He touches Sherlock like he already knows how to touch Sherlock, like he’s always known how to touch Sherlock.

Maybe, Sherlock thinks, gasping into his mouth and digging fingertips into his shoulders, he always has.

Fingertips trace his hipbones and John’s voice is thick and rasping. “Have you ever done this before?” The warm damp of his mouth, pressing to Sherlock’s ribs.

John’s hair, rough under his fingers. John’s shoulders, broad over his body. “Isn’t that how it always works?” Sherlock jokes, wriggling on the sheets as John’s hands find a ticklish bit of skin underneath his belly button. “In the horror movies, I mean. The virgin survives.”

John smiles into the soft tissue of Sherlock’s stomach, just below the curve of his last rib. His wrist, stretched over Sherlock’s body, brushes now and then against Sherlock’s cock in a deliciously unintentional tease. “ _I_ survived, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“In fairness, he wasn’t actually trying to kill _us_.”

“So no, is what you’re telling me.” John looks up at him from somewhere over Sherlock’s thighs as he slides himself further down the bed. “You haven’t.”

“I haven’t,” Sherlock agrees easily, and if John thinks that’s some sort of big deal, he’s wrong. It’s not as though Sherlock had any kind of agenda about it—it just hadn’t happened, and now it was happening, and that was fine. He lays his head back and shifts his hips, trying for an enticing writhe. “Guess it’s up to you to level the playing field. Wouldn’t want to survive a horror movie without you.”

John laughs, his breath huffing out over Sherlock’s skin, over Sherlock’s cock, making him twitch. He considers Sherlock a second or two longer, as if trying to decide whether to ask him about it, but then he dips his head back down to mouth along the crease where Sherlock’s thigh meets torso. “There’s always the threat of virgin sacrifice, too. Might as well pre-empt that one.”

“Good idea,” Sherlock says, a bit breathless through a lopsided smile. “Clever of you.”

“In that case,” John’s mouth slides across his skin, hovers centimetres from Sherlock’s cock, “Can I?”

*

John’s mouth is—is—

*

Sherlock’s cock is smooth and velvety, heavy on John’s tongue, and the feel of him in John’s mouth is gorgeous, the most gorgeous thing John’s ever known, probably, vulnerable and trusting and powerful all at once. His every twist of hip and throatful of growl is exhilarating, building pressure at the base of John’s spine as John moves, sucking and pulling and tasting and—

*

John tangles his fingers in Sherlock’s, clutching back and _oh, my god_ —

*

The salty burst of precome makes John groan, visceral proof of pleasure, and he looks up through heavy eyelids to watch Sherlock with his head thrown back, his chest heaving, red splotches spread from cheek to sternum, one hand tight around John’s and the other grabbing at the sheet and John’s shoulder and the sheet again, gripping John’s hair and the back of his neck and he’s unsteady, uncertain where he wants to end up, where he wants to hold on, and—

*

Sherlock shakes, clenching his teeth to try to quiet the noise until John slips his hand free of Sherlock’s to stroke along his jaw, to loosen it. He pulls off Sherlock’s prick and kisses the head, whispers over it, “You don’t have to hide from me,” and “Let me hear you,” and “God, Sherlock, this is—are you okay, you’re incredible,” and Sherlock lets his mouth drop open and he _gasps_ and _whimpers_ and “ _John_ ,” raising his hips, as close to John as he can get.

John actually smirks around a mouthful of cock and Sherlock’s chest twinges with laughter even as he struggles to handle the onslaught of sensation. John’s hand slides beneath Sherlock’s arse, holding him between palm and mouth, pulling back a little to give Sherlock the room to thrust shallowly, and Sherlock can barely keep his eyes trained on John’s face as things get heated and slippery and a little bit messy.

Then John’s eyes flash up to meet his at the same time one of John’s fingers settles in the crease of Sherlock’s arse, an obvious question written there. “Yes,” Sherlock wrenches from somewhere deep under his breastbone, and oh, god, he feels like a firework, he feels like neon lights, he feels like a spotlight hurtling into the clouds, “ _yes_.”

*

John draws off Sherlock’s cock with an exaggerated _pop,_ just to see Sherlock try to giggle around his breathlessness, and lunges for the bedside table, _please let there be lube in here, please let there be lube in here_ —

“Second drawer,” Sherlock says, and John rips it open and finds the little tube, half-used, _Christ, he uses this_ , _he really uses this, touching himself_. John thinks he’s going to burst, he’s so hard, he’s aching, he’s slicking up half his fingers and sucking a bruise over Sherlock’s left hip and slipping his hand back underneath and Sherlock is pushing down toward him, meeting him, eager and absolute, and John slides one finger over Sherlock’s hole just as he takes the tip of Sherlock’s cock back into his mouth, and—

*

—John pushes in, the tiniest bit, and Sherlock feels his whole world narrow down to a pinpoint, to the careful nudging of John’s fingertip and the gentle, soft sucking of his mouth, and Sherlock can’t think and it’s bliss, it’s beautiful for the first time in his life, to be in his mind, to be adrift in the raucous quiet of too many sensations in the best possible way, and—

*

—Sherlock moans, and whimpers, and shifts, fucking himself in shallow thrusts between John’s finger and mouth and John can’t stop watching him. He uses his free hand to slide over Sherlock’s chest, his stomach, to catch at his nipples and see him shudder in response, before drawing back down to wrap around the base of his cock for more control.

When Sherlock’s eyes finally fly open, when his body starts to shiver and convulse, John sinks down and sinks in and gives him more, gives him everything, and Sherlock—

*

—comes, hard, electricity whipping through him, shaking him alive and gasping, fingers digging into John’s shoulders and his thighs trembling, pulsing, pulsing into John’s mouth until John pulls away and then into John’s hand as he strokes him through it, one finger still buried inside where a single twist of his wrist sends shockwaves up and down Sherlock’s spine until Sherlock grasps at the back of John’s neck and pulls him up, pulls him back over his body and kisses him with everything he has left.

And then, then, when everything is gone, given up and given over, Sherlock blinks into the aftermath, surprisingly blank and full at the same time.

“John,” he croaks.

“Yeah,” John gasps back, his body strung tight against Sherlock’s as Sherlock begins to loosen and unspool, and Sherlock runs his hands down John’s back to grab hold of his hips and grind John down against himself. “Yeah, Sherlock, god, that’s—you’re—”

Sherlock grins, dizzy with the flood of hormones. “Come on,” he encourages, greedy in anticipation of John’s release, of John giving over what Sherlock just had, giving back. He presses his thigh against John’s cock, hitching himself closer and spreading one hand over his arse, pushing into John’s thrust as he groans. “Come on, do it, come on, come _on_.”

It takes almost nothing, John’s already so close, and isn’t _that_ a heady realisation. John shakes, and pushes against him and shakes, and it’s barely a minute before he comes in a hot, wet burst along Sherlock’s hip. His mouth is a hard line against Sherlock’s shoulder, pressing hard enough that Sherlock can feel the impression of his teeth, and he jerks in Sherlock’s grip and everything is wet and messy and _glorious_ , and then John gasps against Sherlock’s shoulder, damp, the breath shaking out of him.

“John,” Sherlock breathes, in awe and wonder and something sharp under his breastbone that feels like helplessness but also like hope, the magnitude of acceptance and want and giving and taking in an endless cycle finally settling into place. The future stretches out endlessly in front of him, suddenly illuminated, emergency light strips leading him toward forever. “John.”

John giggles, smearing a kiss up the line of Sherlock’s neck and finding his mouth. “I know,” he says, “I know what you mean.”

*

“When we wake up tomorrow,” Sherlock whispers, voice rough, his face turned toward the window full of moonlight. It feels like a question. “When we’re ourselves again.”

John can hear a thread of caution in the words and he drags one hand up over Sherlock’s spine, cupping the back of his head where it rests on John’s chest. He’s all soft edges just now, blurred out with sleep and satisfaction, the rumple of his hair and the melt of muscles into some half-dreaming kind of vulnerable curiosity.

“We’ll be amazing,” John whispers back, his mouth pressing into Sherlock’s curls. The Aqua Net makes them a little tacky, but the smell is familiar and John doesn’t mind. “We’ll be ourselves. You’ll be mad and brilliant and drive me around the bend, and I’ll be grumpy and probably far too indulgent of you. And we’ll be together, being ourselves with each other. Until we’re cranky old men. Probably beyond that even.”

“Until we’re gone.”

“Until even the memory of us is gone. As long as there’s you, there’ll be me.”

He can feel the slide of Sherlock’s smile against his skin, against his heart. There’s a flutter on his chest, Sherlock’s eyelashes, opening and closing sticky-slow in the quiet of the night. After a long moment, he shifts, tilting his head up to press a drowsy kiss to John’s chin before settling back in the crook of John’s arm, heavy and content.

“As you wish,” he says.

John closes his eyes and wishes.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading! I hope you enjoyed this Halloween romp as much as I did. 
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr!](http://watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com)


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